Workers are already paying the price. Germany is losing around 3,000 manufacturing jobs every week. Half of Italy’s automotive workforce is on short-time work, while the European Commission fears that 1.3 million manufacturing jobs could be at risk without action.

“These are not abstract statistics. Behind every job lost is a worker, a family and often an entire community that depends on industry. Once industrial capacity and skills disappear, they are extremely difficult to rebuild,” said Judith Kirton-Darling.

“Enough is enough. Europe cannot simply manage industrial decline. We need an emergency response to stop the bleeding, coupled with a long-term strategy to invest in and transform our industrial base.”

IndustriAll Europe’s ‘#EnoughisEnough’ campaign is mobilising workers and trade unions for investment, good industrial jobs and strong European value chains.

Norway is part of Europe’s industrial future

Kirton-Darling stressed that rebuilding European industry must not mean creating a “Fortress EU27”. Norway shows how deeply European industrial value chains extend beyond EU borders.

Norwegian aluminium, silicon and other materials feed manufacturing across Europe, including automotive, batteries, renewable energy and engineering. The key question for workers is not whether production takes place inside or outside the EU27, but whether Europe maintains the industrial ecosystems, productive capacity and good jobs on which its economic and strategic security depend.

“When we talk about European industry, Europe cannot simply mean the EU27. Our industrial value chains do not stop at the European Union’s borders.

“A silicon plant in Norway supplying European steel or aluminium production is part of our strategic industrial capacity. A Norwegian raw-material producer connected to a European battery value chain is part of our strategic resilience.”

This must be reflected in a ‘Made in Europe’ approach to industrial policy. IndustriAll Europe supports using public procurement, subsidies and other public policy tools to create demand for European production. But public money must deliver a public return through investment, quality jobs, collective bargaining, training and industrial transformation.

Affordable energy is existential

For energy-intensive industries such as steel, aluminium, chemicals, fertilisers, glass, cement, paper and ferroalloys, affordable and predictable energy can determine whether production remains viable in Europe.

Europe must accelerate investment in renewable energy, grids, storage and electrification while protecting industrial capacity during the transition.

“The green transition was never supposed to mean closing European factories and importing the same products from elsewhere, often with a higher carbon footprint. That is not a Just Transition – it is deindustrialisation dressed up as climate policy.”

Instead, Europe needs the investment and industrial policy to ensure that clean steel, aluminium, chemicals, batteries, wind turbines and other technologies needed for the transition are produced in Europe. Norway’s renewable electricity, raw materials, industrial skills, engineering expertise and offshore capabilities give it an important role in this future.

A new industrial bargain for Europe

Judith Kirton-Darling called for a new industrial bargain based on five priorities:

• Investment in industrial transformation, infrastructure, clean energy, productive capacity and workers’ skills.
• Affordable and predictable energy that allows energy-intensive manufacturing to remain and transform in Europe.
• Robust trade defence against unfair competition and global overcapacity, while recognising trusted partners such as Norway.
• European preference with social conditions, linking public support to investment, employment, training, collective bargaining and decarbonisation.
• Real Just Transition planning, with companies negotiating transition plans with workers and trade unions before restructuring.

“Europe still has enormous strengths: one of the world’s largest markets, highly skilled industrial workers, world-class research and extraordinary industrial know-how. Norway adds renewable energy, raw materials and highly developed industrial capabilities.”

“We must defend our industrial base. We must transform it. And we must invest in it – together.”