Europe’s battery challenge is no longer about designing strategies, but about delivery
Europe’s policymakers increasingly view batteries not merely as a clean energy technology but as a strategic industrial asset, as the continent wrestles with how to convert political ambition into competitive advantage.
At a debate hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee’s industrial change commission on 11 June, senior figures from policy, research and industry converged on a shared concern: that Europe possesses many of the building blocks for battery leadership but is struggling to translate them into industrial scale.
Alain Coheur, president of the commission, set the tone by calling for a shift from aspiration to execution. Mounting competition from China, shifting geopolitical alignments and persistent energy vulnerabilities mean Europe can no longer afford a fragmented approach to industrial policy, he argued, pressing instead for tighter coordination across the full battery value chain – from manufacturing and investment through to recycling and long-term competitiveness.
From strategy to scale
