Another step towards digitising European industry - Main contents

Today I hosted further discussions with key industry leaders, senior representatives of social partners, research organisations and ministries on how to make a fully digitised industry in Europe a reality.

Around the table were top executives from the manufacturing, pharmaceutical and aeronautic sectors including Arturo Baroncelli, CEO of Comau Robotics, Erich Clementi, CEO IBM Europe, Gérard Colette, Group General Manager of Solvay, Martin Goetzeler, CEO of Aixtron, Paul Stein, Chief Scientific Officer of Rolls-Royce, Markus J. Beyrer, the Director General of Business Europe and Ineke Dezentjé, president of CEEMET, the European employers' organisation of the metal, engineering and technology-based industries. We also had SMEs and representatives of EU Public Private Partnerships which support the mainstreaming of digital innovations in industry.

This meeting was a follow-up of a roundtable in June with national initiatives that support industrial digitisation. This time, the main objective was hearing the views from industry leaders on our European strategy to maximise the benefits from digitisation of industry, in particular which role the EU should play in this endeavour. We also explored how to mobilise industry across Europe to invest in digital innovation and the role industry should play in fostering the development of digital ecosystems across all economic sectors.

There was overall agreement on the urgent need for European industry to take the necessary steps in order to fully benefit from the opportunities of the digital single market. Participants also supported the broad lines of action for the European strategy we outlined earlier this year:

Securing easy for all industrial companies, and especially SMEs, wherever they are located in Europe and for any sector - building on and complementing national and regional digital innovation infrastructures;

Aiming for European leadership in digital industrial platforms based on European strengths in important areas of manufacturing and engineering like automotive, aeronautics and energy;

Preparing our workforce to benefit from the digital transformation - by promoting digital skills across Europe and its regions, at all levels and stages of education and training;

Identifying smart regulatory solutions for smart industry - finding the right policy approach to challenging issues like liability and safety of autonomous systems or ownership and use of industrial data.

Our strategy aims to establish a link between national and regional initiatives like Industrie 4.0, Smart Industry, Industrie du Futur, High Value Manufacturing etc. thereby providing the necessary degree of coordination and helping to reach critical mass where individual initiatives cannot achieve the right scale on their own.

The event today gave me confidence that we are on the right track. Now we need to consolidate the different views and ideas we heard today and to define which concrete actions are necessary at EU level. This was a crucial move towards our next milestone: the presentation of a detailed concept for our next Roundtable at the beginning of 2016. We will continue to work with stakeholders from industry, social partners and national platforms and administrations to set out a clear European agenda on digitising industry by the time of the next Hannover Industry Fair.