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BusinessEurope Headlines No. 2022-16

Supporting Ukrainian business in practice

Representatives of BusinessEurope and the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (ULIE) held an online meeting on 12 May to discuss the challenges that Ukrainian businesses face on the ground and ways to support the economy. “European companies are trying to maintain operations in Ukraine whenever possible and there is also mobilisation through different channels to provide humanitarian and financial support”, said BusinessEurope President Pierre Gattaz. BusinessEurope remains committed to further contributing to these efforts, in close contact with Ukrainian authorities and business counterparts. We strongly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and firmly stand behind the measures that the EU has taken as a response.

Contact: Luisa Santos, Sofia Bournou

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Priorities for the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council meeting

The TTC has been instrumental to ensure the EU and the U.S. are aligned in their sanctions concerning Russia and Belarus. But we need to go further and ensure concrete deliverables to boost the Transatlantic economy. Watch BusinessEurope Director General Markus J. Beyrer talk more about this.

G7 Ministers and B7 representatives discuss cyber security

On 10 May the G7 Ministers in charge of digital policy met with representatives of the B7 community to discuss cyber security. Hosted by the German Digital and Transport Minister Volker Wissing, the roundtable aimed at answering questions on the protection of digital infrastructure and how to optimise the collaboration between businesses and governments to improve cyber resilience. BusinessEurope, represented by Ericsson’s CTO Erik Ekudden, insisted that we must keep working together with governments to foster research cooperation in foundational technologies, regulatory cooperation, and dialogue with the business community. The Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation Alex Boryakov also took part in the discussion. The G7 Digital Ministers adopted a declaration on data free flow with trust, highlighting that “it further includes work on better understanding data localisation measures and their potential implications, including the impact on micro, small and medium enterprises, and considering alternatives to localisation.” The outcome of the G7 Meeting can be found here.

Contact: Svetlana Stoilova

 

Innovation should not become hostage to the precautionary principle

“Precaution and innovation are closely interrelated”, highlighted Carolina Vigo, BusinessEurope’s Adviser for Research and Innovation, at the Recipes event “Precaution for responsible innovation” on 11 May. “What is important, however, is that research and innovation do not only happen because of precaution, but also due to forward-looking legislation”, she added. Carolina explained that an inflated risk-adverse approach may discourage companies to invest in research and innovation. For this reason, BusinessEurope has been advocating that the innovation principle accompanies the precautionary principle. “Our objective is to carry out a thorough assessment on both the risks and the benefits of a legislation, thus having a better-informed decision-making process and boosting responsible innovation”, she concluded.

Contact: Carolina Vigo

Single Market barriers: updated examples available

BusinessEurope has updated its series of short papers showcasing examples of barriers, businesses and citizens face in the Single Market. We believe they are key to understand remaining bottlenecks and facilitate informed decision-making. These examples can be used either as a package or individually in policy discussions with different interlocutors, as they illustrate barriers across a wide range of different policy areas, from free movement of goods and services to company law, social policy coordination or transport.

In a letter addressed to European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton on 22 September 2021, BusinessEurope had stressed that the success of the revised Industrial Strategy in bringing us closer to the objectives of the green and digital transitions significantly relies on the resource efficiency and consumer choice in the Single Market without barriers. Its freedoms are the basis for Europe’s industry and services to develop.

BusinessEurope appreciates the Commission’s analysis provided in the updated Industrial Strategy package of 5 May 2021, re-confirming the remaining Single Market challenges through the angle of 14 industrial eco-systems. We also support efforts in ensuring consistent follow-up to the Long-term Action Plan on Implementation and Enforcement of Single Market Rules (2020), as well as the Annual Single Market Reports, including the last one of 2022. However, tangible actions still need to be defined and taken to address the identified Single Market barriers.

Contact: Adnane Lachheb

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Last updated: 12 May 2022