ZVEI on the French EU Council Presidency 2022

On 1 January 2022, France takes over the Presidency of the EU Council for six months.

The French Presidency will focus on the following three priorities which reflect in its motto ‘Recovery, strength and a sense of belonging':  

• pursuing an agenda for European sovereignty, meaning Europe’s ability to exist in the world as it currently exists and defend its values and interests
• building a new European growth model
• creating a more ’human-sized’ Europe.

Strengthening the EU’s international competitiveness focussing on strategically important areas and technologies is to be at the centre of the French Council Presidency. This includes microelectronics, strengthening EU healthcare systems, data platforms and new Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), as well as the further use of the IPCEI tool to pool public and private investments. 

ZVEI supports the agenda set by the French Council Presidency, especially the focus on sustainability, trade policy and digitalisation. The association supports the planned massive investment in infrastructure and future technologies in Europe, as well as intelligent integration into international supply chains or value networks. Specifically, the association supports that the IPCEI shall be continued and expanded. These projects enable the bundling and incentivisation of investments in strategically important topics and areas within the framework of existing EU competition law. In addition to the existing IPCEI for microelectronics and batteries, others for the cloud and health sectors should now be set up as quickly as possible.

Close partnership between FIEEC and ZVEI

ZVEI cooperates with its close and long-time French partner association FIEEC on topics such as the EU Data Act, sustainable finance and EU taxonomy, EU due diligence and corporate governance reporting as well as microelectronics. 

France is also a close partner of Germany in the field of microelectronics: In December 2021 a new Franco-German working group on all aspects of semiconductor issues was set up by BDI and France Industrie with the objective to better coordinate European microelectronics activities. In this working group FIEEC and ZVEI actively participate and develop joint proposals on the IPCEIs, the EU Chips Act and the work of the EU Semiconductor Alliance.

The Presidency programme is available here.

On 1 July 2022, the Czech EU Presidency will begin, with Sweden taking over from January 2023. The three countries have agreed on a joined programme.