The European Commission is scaling back one of its most significant industrial‑policy initiatives, according to a new draft of the planned “Buy‑European” rules reported by Handelsblatt in its Tuesday edition. The revised proposal will cover fewer sectors than originally envisaged and will relax the criteria for what qualifies as “Made in EU” allowing trade partners to be considered as well.
In the latest draft the Commission has removed several high‑tech components from the legislation. Microchips, sensors, autonomous driving systems and cloud services are no longer subject to mandatory quotas. Earlier versions had included these sectors, but the new version stipulates that there will be no minimum EU shares for chips, artificial intelligence or software components in cars. The biotech and robotics fields have also been dropped from the EU law.
The Commission intends to present the bill on Wednesday. Named the “Industrial Accelerator Act” it aims to strengthen European industry and guard against a flood of imports from China by linking state aid to sector‑specific quotas for “Made in Europe”.