Our industrial companies and employees are massively threatened by unfair trade practices in China and the USA. Whether by the Chinese control of critical raw materials, through the capacities of its steel industry, which exceeds the entire European steel demand by more than four and a half, or through the tariffs of the United States, especially since the new administration took office. China has been running a geopolitically motivated industrial and technology strategy for over a decade. In the area of critical raw materials, this includes a targeted price and settlement policy as well as Beijings.
Resilience begins well before the finished product – it includes the strategic bottle necks that arise in both raw material supply as well as in components and pre -products along the industrial value chain. Key technologies of the EU economic security strategy such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum and biotechnology are of strategic importance and industrial. Only if z. B. Energy -political, regulatory and trading -political levers are bundled in a European framework of regulations, Europe’s technological resilience can be strengthened and the competitiveness of the industrial basis can also be secured permanently.
Politics and business must be sensitized to these risks. The regular global competition is in danger. For Germany and its partners, the resilience of industry must therefore also be given the highest priority. With a market-compliant access to raw materials and processing capacities, intermediate and end products and reliable delivery and production chains are and are the security and prosperity of our country.
From the study commissioned by the “Future of Industry” network, it becomes clear that the state, companies and employees are definitely trying to resilience. Without coordination of the various activities, however, we remain highly susceptible. It is to be welcomed that the new coalition wants to support further EU trade and investment agreements, want to pursue a policy of the DE-Risking in order to increase resilience towards China. However, the narrowing on China and the focus on individual measures fall short. It also remains open how dependencies and risks should be reduced. A structured dialogue of the federal government, countries, companies, unions and associations is needed so that the various processes interlock and lead to tangible measures. This dialogue must be set up by the new federal government. We are ready for cooperation.
The study shows that the growing raw material requirement and the high import dependence threaten to become an Achilles’ heel for the industrial development of Germany and Europe. The race for strategically important raw materials, especially for renewable energy systems, storage technologies, semiconductors, but also for modern security and defense industry has long started. Germany and Europe threaten to fall behind. The markets are largely divided.
In order to achieve the climate and digital goals, to be able to build a credible military defense ability and to reduce dependencies, Germany and Europe must therefore diversify and massively invest in domestic support, processing and recovery of critical raw materials as well as circular added value. The location of Germany has to be strengthened by better framework conditions for planning and approval processes, energy prices and public advertising for domestic production.
We are calling for the rapid and consistent implementation of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) by implementing strategic projects in European raw material production. The federal government’s raw material fund should also take part in the first projects quickly. With raw material -rich in particular like -minded countries, it is important to close agreements and strategic partnerships in the field of critical raw materials. Formats such as the Minerals Security Partnership Forum or the Club intended in the CRMA should be used for critical raw materials to promote common raw material projects and higher environmental and social standards in the raw material sectors of the partner countries with partners. The exchange started with strategic stocks within the framework of the CRMA must be concretized quickly.
However, the structure of other dependencies must also be counteracted consistently: industrial added value that processes critical raw materials in Europe must not migrate further or to be forced by non -competitive framework conditions to throttle or even give up. The view of the net zero industries is still too short here. The industrial sectors, which are at the beginning of the value chain of key technologies, are of central importance (e.g. steel, metal processing, chemistry, glass, ceramics, cement) and must be considered as a central component of the entire value creation chain and the overall industrial location is strengthened.
You can get to the full study “Industrial resilience and strategic sovereignty of Germany” here.