|
16/11/2007
CIAA Statement on DG Enterprise Conference of 15 & 16 November 2007
CIAA welcomes the initiative taken by Vice-President Günter Verheugen and DG Enterprise. This conference entitled ‘Promoting the Leadership of the Agro-Food Industry’ has allowed identifying trends, challenges and, in particular, the strategies to improve the overall performance of the EU food and drink industry.
However, governments and public authorities have their role to play in the process of setting up the right framework. With the Lisbon agenda, EU institutions have put priority on competitiveness and steps have been undertaken to better design EU policy and legislation. The new EU industrial policy developed by DG Enterprise has put additional emphasis on key requirements for the EU food and drink industry. Speakers at the conference showed a high degree of consensus on the key targets which included:
Special attention should be paid to concerns of SMEs, particularly on R&D, on transfer of know-how and on a more balanced relationship with retail trade.
CIAA supports Vice-President Verheugen’s suggestion of a dedicated High Level Group to work on improving the framework in which the food and drink industry operates and strengthening its ability to meet the challenges. We believe that this would lead to more tangible results and we commit to support this process.
|
