3.4. Understanding whether increased green innovation is enhancing innovation in other sectors, and also its effects on industrial inputs prices, is an important step to assess the effects of environmental policy on countries’ competitiveness as well as to better plan environmental policy linked to the performance of industrial sectors.

3.5. There is a pressing need for a fully-fledged rEUnaissance of European industry, to rekindle the spirit of the defunct Lisbon agenda, laid down two decades ago - in other words, making Europe the largest knowledge economy. Recovering this impetus is now more difficult, since there is no avoiding the fact that other powers are overtaking us: the US, China, Japan and other emerging economies (South Korea, etc.). Reinvigorating the EU means forging new alliances and deploying soft power, spreading the Union's values and implementing an external policy that reflects them.

3.6. It also requires a strong focus on the potential of SMEs in branches that provide high-level innovative knowledge-based services. Innovation in Europe typically often emerges from small sized structures and the export of high level knowledge based services has a pioneering role for the market positioning of related industries.

3.7. If Europe is to win back leadership of the knowledge industry or of intangible capital, the meaning of value chains that operate with renewed productive factors must be fully understood. Experience over recent decades suggests that we should re-establish supranational dynamics, turning cooperation into the key tool for countering the current fragmentation of the European industrial map.

4.1. Experience shows that economies that are more intensely involved in global value chains (GVCs) generate larger current account surpluses, or correspondingly smaller current account deficits. The EU should consequently oppose neo-protectionism with greater determination, as it could aggravate the recent blockage in the growth of involvement in such chains, and call for the creation of world economic governance to be built in parallel with cross-European industrial development, under the banner of more cooperation for sustainability: win-win cooperation.

4.2. There is an opportunity to link global value chains with the local economic fabric, fostering the development of local economies, together with disruptive technologies (3D printers, robotics, the Internet of Things, energy storage, renewable energy, big data, genetic biology, nanotechnology, etc.), with an inclusive focus: they can also pave the way for local production with lower-cost inputs, especially if the prosumer profile is adopted, promoting the development of productive and inclusive micro-businesses, in complementarity with the major global value chains.

4.3.1. The new paradigm of sustainability as a factor for competitiveness, geared to a long-term approach, aims to mobilise, align and secure sufficient public and private resources to achieve the objectives set out in the European Union's policies. Providing sufficient resources is crucial to ensuring fair, balanced and inclusive transformation, in which no-one is left behind or excluded from the playing field and in which public interests such as consumer protection, health, safety and quality remain high priorities.

4.3.2. European industry's sectoral initiatives and alliances to shape the New Skills Agenda and compile a catalogue of well-structured initiatives to strengthen or adjust existing programmes (Erasmus+) and implement new ones must reach the EU-27 as a whole as soon as possible, ensuring geographical diversity and the close involvement of local authorities.

4.3.3. At the same time, the EESC strongly backs the push for multistakeholder dialogue forums, the joint development of innovative strategies and pilot schemes of illustrative value, joint experimentation, exchange of best practice and a willingness to follow up and evaluate projects in detail. It also points out that all actors in the industrial value chain must be brought in, as must consumers. The High-Level Industrial Roundtable and the High-Level Group on Competitiveness and Growth should be mentioned in this regard.

4.3.4 It is essential to improve the EU's institutional credibility and to close the gap between the formulation of sector policies and the financial investment made, by:

● Increasing allocations to the EFSI 2.0 and the investment-related structural funds in order to reach geographic regions and populations that have fallen behind during the years of crisis.

● Channelling the EU's recent external surplus and that of the public authorities into investment that balances regional interests with those of the common European project, reflecting the values set out in the Treaties and how they have subsequently been implemented (Articles 2 and 3 in particular).

4.3.5 The 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework must make the most specific and detailed provision possible for the additional budget resources to be allocated to each individual sector, R+D+i and cohesion policies in particular.

4.3.6. EU capital markets union and industrial development. With a view to achieving the sectoral objectives of the renewed industrial policy, the EESC proposes that public and private savings be mobilised via secure pathways ranging from socially responsible investment (SRI) to corporate social responsibility (CSR), optimising and balancing financial yields with vectors for sustainability.

4.3.7. The EESC proposes looking into how to frame certain public guarantees to ensure positive financial returns in the event of socially responsible strategic investment. An initial step, modelled on the positive experience provided by employment pension plans, could be to design a voluntary Europe-wide pensions plan in the retail segment.

4.3.8. Finally, a full and effective implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) is needed, with binding legislation, clear commitments and shared priorities, integrated in the European Semester and in fiscal and economic surveillance.

4.4. Institutional EU industry governance

4.4.1. Transparency is a decisive factor in ensuring the success of this process. Industry as a whole must "act and communicate" by providing high-quality information (relevant, verifiable and comparable) to allow precise measurement of financial and extrafinancial impacts throughout a product's global value chain. Information procedures must be straightforward and avoid excessive red-tape.