Event Report: Europe’s industrial future depends on the full value chain

At a time when Europe is redefining its industrial strategy, the home appliance sector is emerging as a key pillar of competitiveness, sustainability, and resilience. At the European Parliament, policymakers, industry leaders and stakeholders gathered for APPLiA’s high-level debate, hosted by MEP Radan Kanev, to discuss how Europe can maintain its industrial base while advancing its sustainable and digital ambitions.

From the outset, discussions highlighted a widening gap between Europe’s policy ambitions and the conditions needed to sustain its industrial base. MEP Radan Kanev (EPP, Bulgaria) underscored the need for policies that better reflect industrial realities, pointing to mounting pressures from global competition and transformative shifts such as electrification and cybersecurity.

In her keynote address, Paulina Dejmek Hack, Head of Cabinet to European Commissioner Jessika Roswall, framed circularity as a central driver of resilience and strategic autonomy. She emphasised the importance of strengthening the business case for secondary raw materials, alongside efforts to remove remaining Single Market barriers that hinder their broader uptake.

Echoing these concerns, Ana Xavier, Head of Unit at the European Commission, described an increasingly complex global landscape and stressed the urgency of ensuring a level playing field. She highlighted the need to reinforce market surveillance, improve enforcement, and enhance EU coordination—while also supporting companies in adapting to new technologies and evolving skills requirements.

From an industry perspective, Fabio De’ Longhi, CEO of De’ Longhi Group and Vice President of APPLiA, stressed that a competitive industrial base underpins jobs, investment, and consumer welfare. Paolo Falcioni, Director General of APPLiA, reinforced this message, warning that Europe’s long-term resilience will depend on its ability to continue producing and innovating domestically, rather than becoming increasingly reliant on external suppliers. Maintaining the full value chain within Europe, he argued, is essential to this goal.

Panelists also pointed to structural challenges affecting the sector. Irene Pastorino, representing the Permanent Representation of Italy to the EU, highlighted regulatory fragmentation across Member States, while MEP João Cotrim de Figueiredo emphasised the importance of cost competitiveness and product excellence in a global market.

Adolfo Aiello, Deputy Director General for Climate and Energy at EUROFER, pointed to the Steel and Metals Action Plan as a potential model for the broader industrial ecosystem. He noted that such coordinated EU responses to sustained economic pressure demonstrate the value of alignment across the value chain. Extending similar principles to downstream industries could help reinforce the competitiveness of the home appliance sector, while ensuring that both upstream and downstream actors remain part of a cohesive and resilient industrial base.

Overall, the debate revealed a strong consensus around the need for predictable investment conditions, a genuinely level playing field within the Single Market, and an industrial strategy that takes into account the entire value chain.

Ultimately, Europe now faces a strategic choice. This is not merely a technical discussion, but a fundamental question about its future: whether it will remain a continent that produces and innovates, or gradually accept a growing dependence on others to do so.