Roundtable: Competitiveness as top priority - How to coordinate effectively?

A new tool to coordinate efforts

The EU continues to fall behind due to fragmented industrial and research policies, as well as uncoordinated objectives. In an effort to join forces, the EU economic policy agenda (Competitiveness Compass) introduced the Competitiveness Coordination Tool. The aim of this tool is to enable joint action on shared competitiveness priorities at national, cross-border and EU levels. Yet, although the tool has been announced, the Commission's official proposal is still pending.

Roundtable and study draft presentation

At our roundtable, we will discuss what a potential coordination tool could look like. Among others, we will reflect upon:

• How can we identify joint priorities?
• How can the new tool structure the coordination of policies/instruments in a way that the participation of different actors at regional, national and EU levels work towards those joint priorities?
• How can we ensure that these projects strengthen territorial cohesion and make many regions benefit from them? How can quality jobs and skills criteria be integrated? 

As the new Competitiveness Fund, which is part of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) proposal, will allocate funding to these joint priorities, the answers to these questions are of the utmost importance. Christiny Miller, ZOE Institute for Future-fit Economis, will therefore also present her draft study on the tool, which will be commented on by Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, MEP, Kirsi Ekroth-Manssila, DG GROW and Philipp Lausberg from the European Policy Centre.

The roundtable takes place on Monday, 3 November 2025, 12:45 at the FES EU Office, Rue du Taciturne 38, 1000 Brussels. Registrations for this event are now closed. For more information, contact our policy officer for Economic & Digital Policy, Social Europe marie.hasdenteufel(at)fes.de.