European Round Table for Industry

The European Round Table for Industry (previously known as the European Round Table of Industrialists), abbreviated ERT, is a cross-sectoral forum and advocacy group in the European Union consisting of some 60 European industrial businesspeople working to strengthen competitiveness in Europe.

History

The roots of the European Round Table for Industry date back to the early 1980s. The European economy at that time, was regarded as suffering from eurosclerosis in which the European Economic Community (EEC) was perceived as suffering from a lack of dynamism, innovation and competitiveness when compared with the economies of Japan and the United States. The negative economic consequences of the competitive situation worried several leading European businesspeople.

At the initiative of Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, the CEO of Volvo, 17 European business leaders met in the Paris boardroom of Volvo on 6 and 7 April 1983. They envisioned the creation of organisation, which would be able to convey its message about the state of the economy to the European political leaders. The core message was that Europe needed to modernise its industrial bases in order to regain its competitiveness. The industry perceived a lack of a common European industrial development policy, in contrast to the European agricultural policy.

The meeting in Paris was attended by Gyllenhammar, Karl Beurle (Thyssen), Carlo De Benedetti (Olivetti), Curt Nicolin (ASEA), Harry Gray (United Technologies), John Harvey-Jones (ICI), Wolfgang Seelig (Siemens), Umberto Agnelli (Fiat), Peter Baxendell (Shell), Olivier Lecerf (Lafarge Coppée), José Bidegain (Cie de St Gobain), Wisse Dekker (Philips), Antoine Riboud (BSN), Bernard Hanon (Renault), Louis von Planta (Ciba-Geigy) and Helmut Maucher (Nestlé). François-Xavier Ortoli and Étienne Davignon of the European Commission attended the latter part of meeting.

During meetings that followed later that year, ERT was established. Its goal was to gather the leaders of some of Europe’s most significant global businesses, and build cross-sectoral consensus on European matters, promoting competition and competitiveness on a European scale.

The Single Market

Promoting the European single market would become ERT’s core objective. In its first ever publication, a memorandum to the EC Commissioner Étienne Davignon in April 1983, ERT catalogued challenges they argued faced European industry. Among these were fragmentation of the European market; the need to upgrade infrastructures, roads and communications; and the need for governments to remove the many obstacles to innovation and competitiveness.

In November 1984, ERT co-founding member Wisse Dekker (Philips) presented "Europe 1990: An Agenda for Action", a plan for achieving a European Single Market, at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. The plan, strongly backed by ERT, was then presented at a public speech in January 1985 to an audience including many of the newly appointed Commissioners, led by Jacques Delors. Delors’ speech to the European Parliament a few days later set out his ideas for completing the Single Market. In June 1985, the European Commission published its white paper "Completing the Single Market", which paved the way for key treaty changes in the Single European Act of 1986.

From the outset, ERT played a role in promoting the construction of the Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden as part of its European Link project on improvements to European infrastructure. This project also included several other international European infrastructural projects, such as the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link between Denmark and [ermany. Later, ERT became active in the promotion of the earliest Trans-European Networks.

1990s

ERT's busiest decade was 1988 to 1998 under different chairmen: Wisse Dekker (Netherlands), Jérôme Monod (France) and Helmut Maucher (Switzerland) with Keith Richardson as secretary general. During this time ERT published reports on the internal market, infrastructure, education, the environment, the information society, competitiveness, employment and tax issues. Its active role in encouraging the first global G8 cooperation on building common standards for the information society was recognised by several country leaders, including President Bill Clinton.

From early on, ERT was a vocal supporter of EU enlargement. It promoted and often led business dialogues between the EU and business circles in the United States and in Japan as well as in developing countries. ERT gave an early lead in presenting positive contributions to the climate change debate, and control carbon emissions. Two more recent areas for ERT contribution are pensions and international standards.

2000–2019

During 2000–2001, ERT actively sought to stimulate action on innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe. Its paper "Actions for Competitiveness through the Knowledge Economy in Europe", in March 2001, called for national education systems to focus on in-demand skills and for employers to invest in lifelong learning. It also stressed the importance of easier access to venture capital and intellectual property protection.

By the mid-2000s, concerns over a future skills gap in the areas of mathematics, science and technology were increasing. In September 2009, ERT called for the creation of a European coordinating body. This would eventually come into effect in 2011 in the shape of the European Coordinating Body in Maths, Science and Technology Education (ECB), which ran until 2014.

ERT was also concerned by the continuing decline of research and development (R&D) investment in Europe. This was one of five main topics addressed in ERT’s "Vision for a Competitive Europe in 2025", published in February 2010. The document called for a new approach to EU R&D funding and stronger collaboration between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

2019: Name change

In 2019, Secretary General Frank Heemskerk revised the name and brand of ERT and expanded its secretariat to cover more policy areas and engage in more communication, to address some of the criticisms directed at ERT in the past.

2020–present

Competitiveness

With the significant shift in geopolitics, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ERT is intensifying its work on competitiveness, green and digital transition, the single market, competition policy, sustainable finance and reskilling.

Criticism

The Brussels Business is a 2013 documentary film by Friedrich Moser and Matthieu Lietaert which deals with the lack of transparency and the influence of lobbyists on the European Union's decision-making processes. ERT figures largely in the film as an organisation that has had the closest links with the reins of power in the EU, to the extent that certain EU reports, for instance those on European traffic networks, borrowed heavily from ERT reports.[1]

In a report by the former secretary general of the ERT, Keith Richardson, entitled Big Business and the European Agenda, an ASEED Europe report called Misshaping Europe is quoted. The report was critical of the ERT's perceived success in influencing the European Commission:

Presenting a report under the name of the ERT seems to be the only way of getting the attention of the leaders of the EC (the European Community, as it then was). Time after time the ERT has succeeded in getting the EC to adopt the agenda of business at the expense of the environment, of labour and social concerns and of genuine democratic participation.... The political agenda of the EC has to a large extent been dominated by the ERT......While the approximately 5000 lobbyists working in Brussels might occasionally succeed in changing details in directives, the ERT has in many cases been setting the agenda for and deciding the content of EC proposals."[2]

Chairs

List of members in 2023

(Source: ERT.eu)

References
  1. "The Brussels Business - Who Runs the European Union". Archived from the original on 2013-07-18. Retrieved 2014-01-25.
  2. Keith Richardson, Big Business and the European Agenda (2000), The Sussex European Institute, p.30
  3. Members of the ERT
  • Cowles, M., G., Setting the agenda for a new Europe: the ERT and EC 1992, In: Journal of Common Market Studies, 33, 1995,
  • Cowles, M., G., The rise of the European multinational, In: International Economic Insights, 1993
  • ERT, Will European governments in Barcelona keep their Lisbon promises?, Message from the European Round Table of Industrialists to the Barcelona European Council, March 2002. Brussel, feb. 2002
  • Marchipont, J.-F. (1997). "La stratégie industrielle de l'Union Européenne". Revue d'économie industrielle. Luxemburg: Éditions Continent Europe. 71 (1): 17–37. doi:10.3406/rei.1995.1555.
  • Preston, M., E., The European commission and special interest groups, In: Claeys, P.-H., Gobin, C., Smets, I., Lobbyisme, pluralisme et intégration Européenne. Brussel, Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes, 1998, ISBN 978-9052018034
  • Richardson, K. (2000). "Big business and the European agenda". Sussex European Institute Working Paper. University of Sussex. 35.
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