EU Commission sets path for new mandate: EU Competitiveness Compass
Three core pillars
On 29 January 2025, the European Commission unveiled its Competitiveness Compass. This first major initiative of this new Commission mandate aims to improve the EU’s competitiveness to make the European Union the place where future technologies, services, and clean products are invented, manufactured, and put on the market, while being the first continent to become climate neutral.
The Compass transforms last year’s reports by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta into a roadmap focusing on three pillars:
- Innovation
- Decarbonisation
- Security
Closing the innovation gap
The EU will launch a comprehensive AI strategy to boost adoption, including 'AI Gigafactories' with supercomputers and 'Apply AI' initiatives. Similar plans are set for advanced materials, quantum, biotech, robotics, and space technologies.
The EU will also support start-ups and scale-ups by addressing growth obstacles and improving access to financing. The European Commission will propose a simplified "28th regime" by late 2025 or early 2026, unifying corporate law, insolvency, labor, and tax law.
To enhance venture capital access, the Commission will introduce a European Investment and Savings Union to direct more EU savings into investments, complemented by public capital through a refocused European Budget.
Joint Plan for Decarbonization and Competitiveness
The Competitiveness Compass highlights high energy prices as a major challenge. The EU will address this through its upcoming Clean Industrial Act, promoting a competitiveness-driven approach to decarbonization. This act aims to make the EU attractive for manufacturing, including energy-intensive industries, and will support clean tech and circular business models. It will be accompanied by an Affordable Energy Action Plan and an Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act.
Sector-specific plans will drive progress in strategic areas like chemicals and automotive, with tailored plans expected in 2025. Cleantech, biotech, and AI sectors will also have dedicated plans by 2025, addressing their unique needs without introducing new norms that could hinder innovation.
Reducing Dependencies and Increasing Resilience and Economic Security
The EU has launched "Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships" to secure key raw materials, clean energy, sustainable transport fuels, and clean tech globally, reducing dependencies and bolstering the continent's resilience and economic security.
Additionally, the Compass plans to review Public Procurement rules to introduce a European preference for critical sectors and technologies.
Horizontal enablers
The EU commission added that its Competitiveness Compass with its three core pillars would be further supported by five key horizontal enablers:
Simplification
The EU will move forward with its plans for the Omnibus simplification package aimed at drastically reducing regulatory and administrative burden with the first part of the package expected to be released next month. It will focus of on simplifying sustainability reporting, due diligence, and taxonomy. Further Omnibus simplification plans for other sectors will then follow.
Lowering barriers to the single market
The EU will release a Horizontal Single Market strategy meant to modernise the governance framework
Financing
The EU will seek to enhance public and private financing through the building of the European Savings and Investment Union and the refocusing of EU budget.
Promoting skills
The EU plans on proposing an initiative to build what they call “a Union of Skills” focused around building and maintaining talent with the Union but also attracting qualified talent from abroad
Coordination
The Commission will present a “Competitiveness Coordination Tool” to ensure EU Member States coordinate EU policy objectives.
Why it matters
The Competitiveness compass is meant to establish the EU’s political doctrine for the next five years. With this announcement the EU Commission confirms its commitment to focusing on competitiveness through its core pillars. We will have an idea of how impactful this new direction will be for companies over the coming weeks as the EU Commission unveils its 2025 work programme and most importantly, reveals the contents of the much anticipated “Omnibus Simplification Package” meant to eliminate administrative burdens deemed excessive.
If members have any views or questions, please reach out to [email protected].
Theophile Maiziere
Policy Manager - EU, techUK
Theo joined techUK in 2024 as EU Policy Manager. Based in Brussels, he works on our EU policy and engagement.
Theo is an experienced policy adviser who has helped connect EU and non-EU decision makers.
Prior to techUK, Theo worked at the EU delegation to Australia, the Israeli trade mission to the EU, and the City of London Corporation’s Brussels office. In his role, Theo ensures that techUK members are well-informed about EU policy, its origins, and its implications, while also facilitating valuable input to Brussels-based decision-makers.
Theo holds and LLM in International and European law, and an MA in European Studies, both from the University of Amsterdam.
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Sabina Ciofu is Associate Director – International, running the International Policy and Trade Programme at techUK.
Based in Brussels, she leads our EU policy and engagement. She is also our lead on international trade policy, with a focus on digital trade chapter in FTAs, regulatory cooperation as well as broader engagement with the G7, G20, WTO and OECD.
As a transatlanticist at heart, Sabina is a GMF Marshall Memorial fellow and issue-lead on the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, within DigitalEurope.
Previously, she worked as Policy Advisor to a Member of the European Parliament for almost a decade, where she specialised in tech regulation, international trade and EU-US relations.
Sabina loves building communities and bringing people together. She is the founder of the Gentlewomen’s Club and co-organiser of the Young Professionals in Digital Policy. Previously, as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community, she led several youth civic engagement and gender equality projects.
She sits on the Advisory Board of the University College London European Institute, Café Transatlantique, a network of women in transatlantic technology policy and The Nine, Brussels’ first members-only club designed for women.
Sabina holds an MA in War Studies from King’s College London and a BA in Classics from the University of Cambridge.
Policy Manager for International Policy and Trade, techUK
Daniel Clarke
Policy Manager for International Policy and Trade, techUK
Dan joined techUK as a Policy Manager for International Policy and Trade in March 2023.
Before techUK, Dan worked for data and consulting company GlobalData as an analyst of tech and geopolitics. He has also worked in public affairs, political polling, and has written freelance for the New Statesman and Investment Monitor.
Dan has a degree in MSc International Public Policy from University College London, and a BA Geography degree from the University of Sussex.
Outside of work, Dan is a big fan of football, cooking, going to see live music, and reading about international affairs.
Tess joined techUK as an Policy and Public Affairs Team Assistant in November of 2024. In this role, she supports areas such as administration, member communications and media content.
Before joining the Team, she gained experience working as an Intern in both campaign support for MPs and Councilors during the Local and General Election and working for the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. As well as working for multiple charities on issues such as the climate crisis, educational inequality and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). Tess obtained her Bachelors of Arts in Politics and International Relations from University of Nottingham.
