The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Angelino Alfano, arrived in Munich yesterday afternoon to attend the Security Conference, and met with EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Elzbieta Bienkowska, on the fringes of the event.
“Completing the internal market, supporting the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises and developing a tangible roadmap to relaunch European industry are the key points on the growth agenda on which the Italian Government has based its action in Europe,” said Minister Alfano.
“Italy looks with favour on developing an ambitious European industrial policy strategy. The unavoidable priority is to promote the manufacturing sector to make it resilient to the pressure of global competition,” the minister said. He went on: “The Union must support the Member States’ efforts to make European industry more innovative and competitive and must consider the fallout of all its policies on manufacturing, and especially in the commercial sector: the opening of new markets must be matched by the careful protection of European industry and employment on equal terms of reciprocity.”
Turning his attention to the European Defence Action Plan (EDAP) approved last November, Mr Alfano said: “Internal and external security are the areas on which to act if we want to boost the citizens’ confidence in the European Union.” He continued: “A more integrated European defence system would cut costs, enhance efficiency and relaunch the growth of this industrial and technological sector. Therefore, the EDAP is undoubtedly and interesting development perspective although it is important to define the details of its implementation with a view to fully exploiting its value added.”
The meeting also offered the opportunity to discuss several issues relevant for Italy, including Europe’s space policies and the “Product security and market supervision” package, which also involves the indication of the Country of Origin.
