Ceramics/Glass Industry Forum. DG Enterprise, European Commission, Brussels

Transcription

1 Ceramics/Glass Industry Forum DG Enterprise, European Commission, Brussels Friday 3 rd December 2004 Participants For Industry Mr R Chorus - Secretary General, Ceramie Unie Mr G Koch - Weinerberger AG Mr F Van Houte - Secretary General, CPIV Mr D Workman - Director General, British Glass Mr G Tackels - Saint Gobain Conceptions Verriers Mr P Mazeau - Deputy Secretary General, EMCEF Mr M Decayeux - EMCEF For the Commission Mrs L Brykman - Head of Enterprise DG Unit E2 Mr K Bream - Enterprise DG Unit E2 Mr C Allen - Enterprise DG Unit E1 For the European Parliament Ms R Hanes - Assistant to Mr M Harbour, MEP Ms V Miljak - Assistant to Mr J Würmeling, MEP Introduction Mrs Brykman announced the appointment of a new director responsible for these two sectors plus a number of others within DG Enterprise who is Mr Pedro Ortún who will take up his position from 1 st January There is also a new Commissioner, Vice-President Günther Verheugen. The DG will change its name to Enterprise and Industry in recognition of the fact that industry matters. The four major areas of interest will remain general, competition, the internal market and sectoral issues. There will be no change as far as the Ceramic/Glass sectors are concerned where Mr Bream will remain our major contact, reporting to Mrs Brykman. Mr Bream announced that the brochure from the January 2004 conference was now available. He suggested that each of us put it on our website. The focus of today s meeting was to be the action plan for the future. Mr Bream is to formulate a strategy paper. The other major issue to be discussed was social dialogue.

2 Mr Allen was still working on competitiveness issues. He will aim to get something for ceramics in circulation by Christmas. He asked for a list of experts by various sub sectors. Mr Chorus agreed to forward this to him. Mr Bream noted that the new ceramics BREF document was in the process of being completed and could be of use to Mr Allen in his work. Mr Koch suggested that Mr Allen prepare a questionnaire to which he agreed. Mr Van Houte asked about the glass competitiveness analysis. Mr Allen commented that he will use the ceramics document as a model to apply to glass. Mr Bream stated that statistics remain an issue. Mr Allen commented that the Lisbon Agenda could only be moved forward on the basis of sectoral analysis. Social Dialogue Mr Bream asked if there would be joint approval. Mr Chorus commented that they were keen on discussion of issues with social partners where agreement was possible especially on issues like silica in conjunction with other sectors like mining. He commented that the ceramics sector did not have a mandate for a general social dialogue. He further commented that the future forum for such discussions should be a parliamentary grouping. Mr Van Houte commented that he would subscribe to the ceramics view. Glass does not have a forum in parliament but a formal grouping to discuss specific issues would be of value. He commented that it would take time to get people on board. Mr Decayeux and Mr Mazeau on behalf of the Unions suggested that they understood the silica issue and reported that a meeting on 8 th November had come up with the basis of an agreement on this issue. The Unions would wish to take discussions further in identifying problem areas. They were open to continued dialogue with Ceramics and Glass as work is ongoing with other sectors. A request was made to Mr Chorus and Mr Van Houte to push their membership for a mandate. This was an important issue for the Unions. Mrs Brykman concurred saying that social dialogue was important and should be encouraged. Mr Bream said that a meeting was planned to re-launch the ceramics forum with the new parliament. The scope and extent of this forum needed to be reexamined as it was seen as being too British. There was a need to enlarge it. There was also a need to strengthen the input from the Unions. A re-launch meeting should be planned for around about the end of April with preparatory

3 meetings in January when a paper was to be presented to the Commissioner. The glass industry needed to strengthen its ties with the European Parliament and at the moment it was felt not appropriate to take glass on board in a joint Parliamentary forum. Mr Koch suggested that there was some interest from Austria in joining an EU Parliamentary forum. He suggested that there needed to be a balanced representation and gave as an example the fact that there was currently no representation from the construction sector. Mr Bream agreed that there was a need to involve more people from the Commission itself, for instance the Head of Construction. Mrs Brykman commented that the ceramics sector needed to lobby more MEPs to get a wider representation including new member states. There was a need to have industry sector heads attend the forum. Mr Chorus commented that there was a need to have fixed dates for such meetings for the whole year. Mr Farrell suggested that the Secretariat needed to be organised by the industry. Mr Bream commented that finding meeting rooms was an issue as was the question of interpreters. Mr Tackels commented that the glass industry also needed a forum but Mrs Brykman suggested that we needed a decision on whether to run such a forum in parallel or together with ceramics. Mr Workman commented that by working together we created a better chance of having real influence as many of the issues were the same. There was a direct correlation between size and impact. Mr Van Houte suggested that a way forward may be to have an umbrella forum with two sub-sectors one for glass and one for ceramics. Mrs Brykman commented that it made sense to have a joint approach. The January conference proved that there were several issues of common interest. Mr Farrell commented that several of the markets for glass and ceramics were the same e.g. construction and there were other issues such as gas prices for which the Commission could react to a joint glass and ceramics approach. Mr Decayeux and Mr Mazeau for the Unions suggested that the trade union movement saw issues as global and not sectoral - for instance health and safety. There should be more Union representation at EU level but cost was an issue. Mr Bream also commented that he would like to see an increase in trade union representation.

4 Mr Chorus suggested that the Economic and Social Council should be approached with regard to costs. The Unions responded by saying that they were very interested in the forum but that there were already social dialogues in place with sectors such as mining, electricity and gas which keeps then very busy. Finance was more likely to be available for a social dialogue rather than a forum. Mr Bream suggested drawing up a list of MEPs with constituency interests especially from the new member states. Action Plan Mr Bream needs to develop action plans for the industry which expand on the broad plans outlined in the January conference. He suggested that the ceramics Bref was a good start point and hoped that agreement would be reached early. There needed to be a similar process with Directives e.g. EU ETS. He suggested that there was too much use of consultants by the Commission instead of sitting down with the industry. Policy departments within the Commission need to sit down with industry earlier on legislative issues. Mrs Brykman suggested that industry needed to demonstrate commitment to sustainable development, giving examples. A clear view was required on the potential for the EU to remain competitive - for instance research and innovation. After this had been actioned we should then move on to address the issues for longer term action by the Commission. Mr Van Houte suggested that the drivers should be explained in detail. Mr Koch suggested that we needed to prove sustainability products, environment, social responsibility with concrete case studies. Mrs Brykman posed the question as to what we really need to do to keep our industries sustainable. Mr Chorus suggested that we needed to look beyond sustainable development. Mr Farrell concurred suggesting that other issues such as trade and costs needed to be taken into account within the sustainability approach. Mr Koch suggested that we needed to look at the threats to sustainability. Mr Van Houte suggested that we need to look a formatting our response. Mr Chorus then went on to present in detail his proposals for sustainable development which covered the following areas: competitiveness, Sees, distortion of competition, international trade, counterfeiting, training, enlargement, social dialogue and the EU Parliament Ceramics Forum (paper attached). All of the elements of this EU action programme needed to be put into the framework of sustainable development.

5 Mr Workman commented that all elements of sustainable development become irrelevant if cost rises within our sectors become so great that the industries go into survival mode which means that the first things to be cut would be investment, training and innovation. Sustainable development needed to be taken in the context of the global environment in which we work. Mr Farrell commented that currency is now a serious issue as is energy pricing and could lead to adverse price movements of up to 20%. The Commission needed to be aware of the total set of circumstances and whilst it cannot do anything directly about currency it can act in areas like energy. Mrs Brykman suggested that a paper should be issued spelling out the outcome of our discussions including the real threats to our industry. A more solid approach to our arguments in future papers was required. She hoped that the paper would be available in January. Mr Bream commented again that case studies were very important especially on the subject of sustainability. Mr Farrell suggested that Mr Van Houte, Mr Chorus and Mr Bream should act to pull together a report based on the discussions that the Glass Ceramics Forum have had to date and the papers issued on the January conference. Mrs Brykman commented that we needed to address the main issue of how we maintain stability and we also needed to be conscious of the audiences that we were addressing. Mr Bream suggested that a further meeting be held on 17 th January at 1pm. Mr Van Houte suggested that this was a useful forum and that we should aim to continue to meet on a regular basis throughout Mrs Brykman agreed in principle.