‘Extend the “Made in the EU” label to fasteners as well’
Eifi President Paolo Pozzi: “Protecting vehicles is not enough; there must also be a minimum requirement for European content in components.”
‘Made in the EU’, sure, but not just for cars. The European Industrial Fasteners Institute (EIFI) has written to Brussels calling for a review of the Industrial Accelerator Act, to extend protection to components used in cars – an area in which a minimum proportion of production must be sourced from within the continent.
The white paper addressed to the European Commission emphasises, in general terms, that in order to preserve its manufacturing base, Europe must extend the ‘Made in the EU’ requirements to components and businesses operating in the intermediate stages of the supply chain. The crux of the matter concerns first- and second-tier suppliers: if they manufacture their systems in Europe but source components from non-EU markets, the EU content requirement for cars is formally safeguarded, but that for upstream suppliers is not.
“A resilient European automotive industry,” explains EIFI President Paolo Pozzi, CEO of Agrati, based in Brianza, “requires equally resilient European supply chains. Europe cannot strengthen its automotive industry by focusing exclusively on the finished vehicle whilst, at the same time, gradually losing the production capacity, know-how, investment and jobs linked to the components that make its manufacture possible.”
The starting point is the growing pressure facing European component manufacturers, for whom fasteners are essential components and provide a particularly significant example of the challenges facing European businesses.
‘For products not subject to anti-dumping measures,’ explains Eifi, ‘between 2021 and 2025, the market share in the EU held by European-made fasteners fell by 7 percentage points.’ Furthermore, significant price pressure remains, to which suppliers in the automotive sector are particularly exposed.
