Brussels, 12 March 2025
Today, nine EU Member States have launched the Semiconductor Coalition, marking an important step toward deepening cooperation Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem.
At the margin of the COMPET Council, responsible ministers of Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands issued a statement where they agreed to reinforce their cooperation to strengthen European’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy in the semiconductor sector by supporting research, expanding production capacity, and fostering a highly skilled workforce.
The European Commission welcomes the Semiconductor Coalition, which provides a strong signal of Member States’ commitment to fostering an innovative, competitive, and resilient semiconductor ecosystem in Europe. The Commission strongly supports this initiative and looks forward to continued collaboration with all Member States and with public and private semiconductors stakeholders.
The European Commission has been already working with Member States through the Chips Act, which has mobilized over €80 billion in investments for semiconductor manufacturing and R&D. The work of the Semiconductor Coalition will contribute valuable insights as we evaluate and refine this policy framework to further support Europe’s ambitions in the semiconductor field.
European countries agree to strengthen position in global semiconductor industry
Europe stands at a critical juncture in the global technological landscape. It is therefore imperative that decisive and collective action is taken to strengthen our semiconductor industry.
The recent AI Action Summit in Paris demonstrated the unique opportunity to align our efforts and reinforce Europe’s leadership in cutting-edge technologies.
Semiconductors are the backbone of our society and our economies, powering everything innovative from artificial intelligence, aerospace, defense, mobility, communications to energy.
Ensuring a resilient and competitive European semiconductor sector is not just an economic priority but a strategic necessity for prosperity and safety.
To ensure technological sovereignty, resilience and strategic autonomy, the EU must strongly enhance its cooperation – between governments, industry, research institutions – and jointly create and coordinate a common strategy to increase production capacity, invest in cutting-edge research, and develop a skilled workforce. This coordinated approach needs to ensure that:
- critical steps in end-to-end value chains for the semiconductor industry are available and accessible to EU countries;
- new, reliable and innovative technologies are developed and industrialized in the EU;
- Europe’s current key leading positions are strengthened and expanded into new areas, and;
- Europe enables faster commercialization of research.
Through coordinated policies, strategic funding, and international partnerships, Europe can secure a stronger position as a global leader in the semiconductor industry.
To kickstart this cooperation, we will work together in a Coalition of the Willing to strengthen our competitiveness in the semiconductor industry. We will work towards securing supply chains, developing innovative technologies across the whole semiconductor value chain, supporting startups and scale ups, and ensuring close coordination of our efforts in this key European industry.
In the coming months, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland,1 Spain, and The Netherlands will work in cooperation with the European Commission towards a Declaration that will be open for all Member States to support, underlining our commitment to strengthen Europe’s position in the global semiconductor industry.
Governments and industry need to act now. Only through unity and ambition can we build a stronger and leading European semiconductor ecosystem.
The Declaration will not create any legal rights or obligations under Union or international law.
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1 Poland, being the current President of the Council attended the meeting on March 12th as an observer.