EU Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and Commissioner Thierry Breton have unveiled a package of initiatives to accelerate Europe's digital sovereignty and ensure resilience and technological leadership in the industrial sector of microchips: ‘European Chips Act’.

The package introduces one of the largest investment plans in one specific sector – the microchips sector – and includes a Chips for Europe initiative, which will combine public and private investments to reinforce EU’s semiconductor technology, research, and innovation capabilities, and is based around the following objectives:

• Bridge the gap between research and production
• Increase the production and ensure supply security
• Educate, upskill and train in order attract talent and create jobs
• Strengthen Europe’s leadership in the technological sector
• Rebalance the global supply chain and build partnerships with like-minder countries

The initiative sets out a set of measures to ensure future competitiveness and maintaining Europe’s technological leadership and security of supply while providing an additional tool to help achieve the digital and green transitions.

“Chips are necessary for the green and digital transition - and for the competitiveness of European industry. We should not rely on one country or one company to ensure safety of supply. We must do more together - in research, innovation, design, production facilities - to ensure that Europe will be stronger as a key actor in the global value chain. It will also benefit our international partners. We will work with them to avoid future supply issues.”, Vestager added during the presentation of the package.

The main components of the #EUChipsAct are:

✔️the Chips for Europe Initiative
✔️a new framework to ensure the security of supply
✔️a coordination mechanism at the EU level
✔️a joint crisis assessment and coordinated responses pic.twitter.com/XrFy6gLNgi

— European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) February 8, 2022

This package is an important step towards delivering on the ALDE Party manifesto (2019) to embrace the potential of the technological and digital evolution and to reignite economic growth.

As Liberals, we believe that to harness the full potential of innovation and digitalisation, we need to increase investment in digital infrastructures and skills to strengthen our economy and equip our citizens and businesses with the tools to steer their own destiny in a digital society. With the most advanced industrial sector, Europe must identify the strategic efforts to boost our strengths and mitigate our weaknesses while also ensuring a leading position in the global technological market.

Next steps

The European Parliament and the Member States will now discuss the package in the ordinary legislative procedure. Once adopted, the regulation will be directly applicable across the EU.

An important day for Europe’s tech sovereignty!🇪🇺

With the strong support of President @vonderleyen we are unveiling today our #EUChipsAct

The most ambitious tech plan enabling Europe to become a world leader in #semiconductors again.

🔜 Europe to be a net exporter! pic.twitter.com/57yD21OwrM

— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) February 8, 2022

Photo credit: Thierry Breton