On 14 March, the European Commission launched a public consultation on the roadmap for the Chips Act, a comprehensive set of measures to ensure the EU’s security of supply in semiconductor technologies and applications.
The initiative comes at a moment where the global semiconductor shortage has exposed the EU’s dependency on the supply from a limited number of third countries as well as its vulnerability to third country export restrictions, and other disruptions due to the present geopolitical context.
With the Chips Act, the goal of the European Commission is not only to reduce dependencies, but also to seize the future economic opportunities of the sector, with the ambition to double its world production share to 20% in value by 2030. Given the urgency of the issue, the proposal has not been accompanied by any formal impact assessment, yet analysis and supporting evidence will be published at the latest within three months of the proposal’s publication.
The proposed regulation is composed of three main pillars:
The Chips for Europe Initiative, which will pool resources from the Union, Member States, third countries associated with already-existing Union programs, and private actors. The aim is to reinforce the EU’s advanced design, systems integration, and chips production capabilities and skills.
A new framework, including a Chips Fund, to ensure security of supply by attracting investments and enhanced production capacities.
A coordination mechanism between the Member States and the European Commission for strengthening collaboration with and across Member States, so as to continuously monitor the market of semiconductors, and anticipate shortages.
In addition to the public consultation, the European Commission already published a stakeholder survey, which will be open until March 20th 2022 (here).
The public consultation, instead, will close on May 9th 2022 (here).