The EU Commission is weakening one of its most important industrial‑policy initiatives. A new draft of the proposed “Buy‑European” rules, reported by “Handelsblatt” in its Tuesday edition, will protect fewer sectors than originally planned and relax the criteria for what counts as “Made in EU”. Trade partners will now also be eligible under the new definition.
In the latest draft, the Commission has removed items such as micro‑chips, sensors, autonomous driving systems and cloud services from the legislation. These sectors were listed in earlier drafts. As a result, there will be no minimum quotas for European chips, artificial intelligence, or software components in cars, and the biotech and robotics sectors have been dropped from the EU law as well.
The Commission intends to present this draft law on Wednesday. Called the “Industrial Accelerator Act” it aims to strengthen European industry and shield it from a surge of Chinese competition. State subsidies will be linked to sector‑specific quotas for products that are “Made in Europe”.
