Combining place-based industrial transformation with centrally coordinated industrial policy in the EU

This paper focuses on ways to ensure coherence between place-based innovation and EU industrial policy, and proposes a new approach to sustainable, resilient and secure development in the EU. Underlying the proposed approach is the recognition that past attempts at goal-based policymaking, including the European Green Deal, have overlooked key trade-offs such as those involving socio economic impacts and territorial impacts. This in turn created discontent and a significant polarisation of public opinion, with non-metropolitan areas witnessing a rise in the anti-European sentiment. The paper argues that mono-dimensional approaches to industrial development (e.g. decarbonisation pathways) are unlikely to deliver prosperity and well-being, which stand as the ultimate goals of the European Union; and that a multi-dimensional approach aimed at addressing key trade-offs are much more suitable to such enterprise. In outlining a backcasting, mission-oriented and foresight-inspired approach, this paper suggests that the EU fully embraces economic complexity when looking at its geography, and that of the rest of the world.