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Updating the 2020 Industrial Strategy: towards a stronger Single Market for Europe's recovery

On 5th May 2021, the Commission updated the EU Industrial Strategy to ensure that its industrial ambition takes full account of the new circumstances following the COVID-19 crisis and helps to drive the transformation to a more sustainable, digital, resilient and globally competitive economy.

The updated Strategy reaffirms the priorities set out in the March 2020 Communication, published the day before the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, while responding to the lessons learned from the crisis to boost the recovery and enhance the EU's open strategic autonomy. It proposes new measures to strengthen the resilience of our Single Market, especially in times of crisis. It addresses the need to better understand our dependencies in key strategic areas and presents a toolbox to address them. It offers new measures to accelerate the green and digital transitions. The updated Strategy also responds to calls to identify and monitor the main indicators of the competitiveness of the EU economy as a whole: single market integration, productivity growth, international competitiveness, public and private investment and R&D investment.

The SME dimension is at the core of the updated Strategy with tailored financial support and measures to enable SMEs and start-ups to embrace the twin transitions. The Commission intends to appoint Mr Vazil Hudák as the SME Envoy. His appointment is currently being finalised.

To see the full communication about the updated industrial strategy, click here.