Today, Glass Fibre Europe has joined the list of signatories supporting Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné’s call for a European preference under the banner “Made in Europe.”
This initiative reflects positions that Glass Fibre Europe and its members have consistently defended over the years. The European glass fibre industry is directly exposed to imports at predatory prices from state-owned Chinese companies seeking to control global production in strategic supply chains such as renewables.
As the association’s Secretary General, Cédric Janssens, underlined, “A European preference is an essential element of the set of measures needed to ensure Europe’s economic security, alongside trade defence instruments to tackle unfair trade practices and targeted measures to reduce production costs.”
Strengthening the resilience of Europe’s value chains requires a comprehensive and upstream approach. C. Janssens notes, “Strategic autonomy starts with input materials. Local suppliers are not only essential for securing supply; they are also fundamental to our capacity to innovate, which underpins the long-term competitiveness of our value chains.”
Glass Fibre Europe looks forward to engaging constructively on the upcoming policy proposals and calls on the European Commission to ensure that the scope of a future European preference covers input materials, alongside finished and semi-finished products. Such an approach is essential to build genuinely robust and resilient European value chains.