COTANCE follows up with European Commission
03/11/2009
A delegation from the European Union’s leather industry association, COTANCE, led by current president, Nalle Johansson of ELMO, Sweden, held a meeting in Brussels on Friday, October 30 with European Commission vice-president Günter Verheugen for a de-briefing session following the previous encounter of July 3 (see leatherbiz, July 9 2009).
President Johansson, vice-presidents Ricomard (from Tanneries Roux in France) and Mercogliano (representing UNIC and Lineapelle, Italy) as well as COTANCE secretary general, Gustavo Gonzalez-Quijano, reviewed with Mr Verheugen the development of the sector since the start of the economic crisis and the initiatives that were taken at EU level in response to the COTANCE requests for supporting the competitiveness of the European leather Industry.
COTANCE reported an improvement in the European leather trade and industry since the summer, with orders and exports picking up again. The general press has notably highlighted business progress in supplies to the automotive sector thanks to the support to the car industry granted by EU governments, and in the industrial cluster of Arzignano in Italy that is regaining momentum, notably in exports of high-quality leather for the fashion industry. Commission vice-president Verheugen was pleased to note the resilience of European tanners in the face of the adverse economic situation and encouraged the sector to continue on this positive path.
Those present at the meeting then moved on to assess the progress of the Commission initiatives requested by the European leather industry to help strengthen the sector’s competitiveness. Good progress could be identified in particular in three areas.
The first of these has been in addressing the credit crunch. Vice-president Verheugen refererred to the facility set up recently at the European Investment Bank (EIB) in response to the liquidity needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs in the leather industry can now have access to EIB loans for SMEs through intermediaries at national level targetting the financing of their working capital requirements (more information is available at this link EIB loans). COTANCE welcomed the initiative but pointed out that this was not necessarily solving the sectoral bias in the access to credit and that a solution to the discriminatory treatment by banks that is affecting notably traditional industrial sectors, such as leather or textiles, is still to be furthered. A concrete proposal was aired by COTANCE on this occasion.
The second area in which COTANCE identified good progress was in addressing the issue of misdescriptions of leather and labelling of leather products. Progress could be acknowledged particularly in the sector’s request for a regulation targetting the avoidance of misdescriptions of leather and harmonising at EU level the labelling requirements for leather products.
A stakeholder meeting organised by the Commissions directorate general for the Enterprise on the issue garnered significant support from European textiles and clothing industry representatives (Euratex), European leathergoods producers (ELGA), European furniture industry representatives (UEA) as well as from European fashion retailers and European trade unions. This will allow the initiative to continue to the next step of the legislative procedure involving member states on a concrete proposal.
The third area in which there has been progress has been in addressing the trade issues of the European leather industry. Vice-president Verheugen was pleased to note that the directorate general for Trade was considering setting up a working group on leather for addressing comprehensively and specifically the barriers that European leather sector operators find in their access to markets in third countries. He also indicated that he would follow up on the matter with Trade Commissioner, Baroness Ashton, including the sector’s trade dispute with Morocco that he said “should not become a precedent”.
On other issues identified during the previous encounter (notably REACH and IPPC—the Integrated Pollution Prevention Control directive), Commission vice-president Verheugen suggested that COTANCE raise them with the European Parliament where, he said, there is “strong sympathy” for the leather industry. Mr Verheugen explained the various possible scenarios for the new Commission being set in place and indicated that, although his function was now theoretically coming to an end, a further encounter with COTANCE could still be possible.
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