Extraordinary Industrial Forum discussed impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on EU industries

The Forum consists of industry experts from various fields in the private, non-profit and public sectors and was set up to help the Commission with the implementation of the EU’s Updated Industrial Strategy, offering a platform to facilitating dialogue, design joint solutions and provide advice to the Commission. However, the recent unfolding events in Ukraine have led to the need for a special meeting of the Forum to discuss the new situation in Ukraine and gather information from members on how the war was affecting different European industries. The discussion that took place represents a first step in coordinating information and measures relevant to tackling the impact of the war and will feed into the Commission’s further work to address situation.

Participants of the meeting expressed strong support for the measures already taken and readiness to work with the Commission, in particular to analyse the effects of the situation on different supply chains and help the Commission with recommendations. This will also allow to feed the ongoing work on the greening and digitalisation of industrial ecosystems developed through the work on transition pathways.

The Commission also provided an overview of the actions and measures already being undertaken to address the situation, and invited members to submit further feedback to a new EU survey on supply chain disruptions prepared by the EU Cluster Collaboration Platform on behalf of the Commission. The results will be presented at a special EU Clusters Talk session on Wednesday 16 March. A part of the discussion was also devoted to understanding what industries can do to support Ukraine and its citizens, where the Commission highlighted the good example of the support being provided by the newly set up 'EU Clusters support Ukraine'.