Premium
The European Union single market will only be completed by Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen area, said Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) MEP Iuliu Winkler, deputy chair of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade (INTA).
The consequences of the energy crisis and the future of the European industrial model were the topics of the conference "Revitalising Europe's industrial strength: Ways to counter de-industrialisation," which took place at the European Parliament, organised by MEP Iuliu Winkler.
"At a time when the most important economic and social process in the EU is the double transition, digital and green, and when we see that industrial competitiveness in the EU is clearly affected by current realities that are not favourable to us, energy is more expensive than in Asia and the United States, the competitiveness of European companies must respond to extremely important challenges," said Winkler.
The event was also attended by a representative of the European Commission, along with representatives of some of the EU's major industrial associations, which include hundreds of companies, and discussed relations with China and the US, told Agerpres.
Discussions focused on how to implement policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, how to adopt new legislative initiatives to eliminate products that are obtained through forced labour, and how to make global supply chains transparent.
Economic competitiveness in the context of the war in Ukraine was a major theme of the debate.
"We are the neighbours of this conflict, we, the European Union, so it affects us, first of all, as inflation is a global phenomenon that affects a lot of people. But, we look a little bit on other continents and we see single digit inflation figures and we see in the EU double digit values in many of the countries, we see energy prices that are two, three, maybe even four times higher in the EU than in the US or Asia and we see European companies reporting loss of markets or diminishing contracts that they have. On the other hand, they report competition, more intense competition, sometimes with elements of unfair competition from companies in other countries that are aggressively seeking to take over, to conquer, let's say, the traditional markets of European companies," the MEP stressed.
In his opinion, there are three important things that can be built on: the single EU market - which will only be completed by Romania and Bulgaria joining Schengen, the common European competition policy and the common trade policy.
"We have to see it through to the political level and I can give an example related to the Schengen membership of Romania and Bulgaria, because, in the end, Romania's and Bulgaria's entry into Schengen, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine, the solidarity corridors that work for exports from Ukraine and the economic and trade relations we want to maintain with Ukraine. This accession of Romania and Bulgaria is nothing less than a development of the European single market. The second point on which we can rely is the common European competition policy and linked to it the state aid policy (...) The third point on which we can rely and perhaps the most powerful instrument of the EU - the common trade policy," said the MEP.
The conference was organised together with Spanish MEP Inma Rodriguez-Pinero (S&D).
