He committed to doing whatever is necessary to de-risk investments in innovation and in funding start-ups; he mentioned the role that the European Investment Bank, the EU executive’s lending arm, can play in sustaining clean-tech firms; and he promised to streamline the distribution of funds linked to common European projects (IPCEIs in Brussels jargon) and to reduce it to “a single decision.”
However, like other commissioner-nominees before him, he was unable to answer some basic questions about the size and the working of the EU’s future competitiveness fund. The promised new cash pot, which was pitched in the Commission’s political guidelines, is supposed to fund the EU’s common industrial priorities.
However, at a time when the Commission — backed by many governments — is considering diverting cohesion funds, which fuel regional development and support Europe’s poorest areas, and cohesion policy itself seems under threat, Séjourné argued he would like to use the bloc’s cohesion principles to carve out a new fund for EU industrial policy.
“I hope we can look at the cohesion criteria when it comes to the competitiveness fund,” he said.
Public procurement with a social flavor
Séjourné said he does not want to delay the long-awaited reform of public procurement rules, promising he will soon launch consultations on the matter, and borrowing a formula from progressive lawmakers that the goal should be to ensure “quality jobs.” He also said he is not against setting mandatory social conditions in public tenders.
Trillions of euros are at stake, with EU public administrations mobilizing around 14 percent of the bloc’s GDP. The reform is seen as a tool to boost the bloc’s industrial capacity, especially its manufacturing sector, which has suffered from global competition over the last decade. Left-wing political groups also see it as a way to achieve better social conditions for workers.
