Hace unos días tuve la suerte de participar en un muy interesante panel sobre "Productivity challenges of the EU: Policies for a more innovative and inclusive Europe" en el College of Europe (gracias a Jorge Díaz Lanchas y Peter Claeys por su invitación y por organizarlo). Los ponentes hicieron muy buenas reflexiones sobre innovación o competitividad a escala europea, muy en la línea de lo que defienden Eickhout et al en este comentario sobre la Net Zero Industry Act recién aprobada, y sobre la que coincido que se queda muy corta.
Adjunto las notas que utilicé para mi intervención aunque realmente no son muy novedosas:
The diagnosis:
- We need to decarbonize our economy, hard and fast.
- As policy makers always tell us, the climate and energy transition also has benefits: besides from reductions in GHG emissions and other types of pollution, it can also create jobs and help us get back the Lisbon agenda, European competitiveness based on knowledge and innovation.
- However, this is only part of the story: this will of course entail costs for all (or for many). If it were easy or free, we would have done it already.
- And of course, these higher costs may result in delocalisation of industry (we can discuss about CBAM later). Transport or buildings will not be delocalised, only suffer from higher costs.
- These disadvantages have already started to be perceived by the public, used by populist parties, and created a backlash which may be seen (or not) in the coming European elections.
So, if we want decarbonization without delocalization, and without (excessive) sacrifice and backlash, we need to ensure that the benefits of the process are materialized, while the costs of it are minimized (or at least taken care of).
How can we do that? Smart industrial policy (China and the US are already engaged on it, in a not necessarily smart way, see e.g. the case of Canadian Solar). What would be the elements of a smart industrial policy? Industry needs productive jobs, competitive energy, and innovation.
- European Scale Energy Policy: current EU proposals for the electricity market are too "national". The Letta report (and us) argue that we need more European markets. More interconnection would also be welcome, but is not the only thing we need.
- European Policies for Industrial Decarbonization: Climate Strategies Package: create markets (green public procurement, standards), give certainty to investors (CfDs, CCfDs), reduce leakage (CBAM, Climate Clubs)
- The NZIA is severely limited
- European Innovation Policy
- This is not only about giving more money to existing institutions
- It's about rethinking institutions: ARPA-E, Fraunhofer, Energy Innovation Hubs, etc.
- And of course includes education and training of workers
- European Agency for Industry: speed to deliver the funds and to monitor them
Ideally, it should be done at the European scale (Letta report). But there are tensions between the European scale required, and the local benefits (e.g. pilot projects in Sweden vs Spain). And tensions between the single market and the national budgets.
Two additional ideas:
from Rodrik: Focus on services not industry. Maybe our advantage lies in the engineering, design part, not on the manufacturing.
from Hirschman: Trial and error, sequential stages. We need innovation in innovation policy, experimentation.
