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This report emerges in response to calls from the Competitiveness Council for the Commission to assess the resilience of the Single Market over the past year. The document highlights lessons from the COVID-19 crisis; defines and reports on key performance indicators on industrial strategy and competitiveness; and takes stock of implementation of the March 2020 Single Market Enforcement Action Plan (SMEAP). This is the first report of a forthcoming series.
The first Annual Single Market Report identifies fourteen industrial ecosystems, with their different needs, current and forthcoming challenges as well as supporting EU policy tools. An “Agri-Food ecosystem” has been identified as one of the crucial backbones of the European economy. CEMA welcomes that as part of that, farm equipment ‘machinery’ was listed as a crucial element supporting this economic sector [detailed info on page 83].
Today, the Covid-19 pandemic has reversed any established pattern in the way we live, produce and consume. In certain cases, this crisis can be seen as a catalyst that will put forward new economic models, will change consumers’ demands and will drive further innovation across sectors. The assessment under the agri-food ecosystem, clearly points out that the reinforcement of the so-called “twin” (green and digital) transition in European agriculture remains a key challenge to increase the resilience of the sector marked by dependency on cross-border trade, shortage of workers, an ageing farmers’ population and a high number of SMEs with less capacity of reaction in case of difficulties. Building up on this analysis and in order to move forward to the achievement of the Farm-to-Fork ambitious targets, CEMA seizes the opportunity to voice under its “AgriTech 2030 plan”, a number of calls for urgent action to the EU institutions on the following areas*:
- Mainstream a further adoption of Precision Farming technologies and accelerate the digital transformation of European agriculture
- Provide via CAP after 2020 direct support measures for the investment in green, digital and precision technology as well as knowledge sharing
- Raise the attractiveness of the agricultural and industrial sectors
- Improve digital skills for current and future farmers and their advisors
- Strengthen investment in rural broadband across the entire EU to establish a robust digital infrastructure for this farming revolution.
*To see the full list of policy asks under ‘AgriTech 2030’ please click here
The Annual Single Market Report can be found here
EU Industrial Strategy Update can be found here