28/04/2025
Microchips - is the EU ready to compete in a global race?
We had a busy press conference this morning for our new European Court of Auditors 'Special report 12/2025 - The EU’s strategy for microchips', my latest as reporting member.
Europe once had a significant chunk of the global microchips industry, with a 20%+ share in the 1990s – however, it has now dwindled to around 10%.
are the brains of modern systems, and are inseparable from every aspect of industrial policy - from cars to hospitals, planes to entertainment, and modern defence systems – nothing works without microchips. And demand for and our dependency on microchips is only going to increase, with AI, the digital transition, and new technological breakthroughs.
The EU came into law in 2023, with a bundle of €43bn of policy-driven investments, matched by private funds for a figure of over €86bn.
It also came with a target – the EU Digital Decade target of 20 % by value of world production in cutting-edge and sustainable microchips by 2030.
Our report assessed whether EU industrial policy has supported Europe’s strategic autonomy in microchips. Our findings include:
· The 20% target was overly ambitious, and we are not even close to being on track to meet it - the current projection is for a share of 11.7%.
· We have fragmented competences - the bulk of the Chips Act funding comes from the member states and private actors, and the Commission does not have a full overview of that funding.
· The EU microchips industry is still vulnerable to Europe’s general industrial weaknesses, such as energy prices, raw materials and tariffs and export bans.
We recommend that the Commission carry out a reality check on its strategy, and take any necessary short-term corrections. And that they quickly get to work on a new Chips strategy, that addresses the issues we have raised.
I would like to thank the team, and everyone involved in the report, for their work.
The report is now available on the ECA website, in the 24 official EU languages – read it there