Its pause spells trouble for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who presented her team for her second mandate on Tuesday, and singled out a “more robust industrial strategy” to compete on key technologies as its number one priority. The Frenchman who pushed the chips plan, Thierry Breton, quit the Commission just a day earlier.
The new delays cripple Europe’s chances to compete in the global chips race. The U.S., China, South Korea and other countries have pledged massive public support schemes to lure manufacturers to their shores to build new factories to churn out the chips that power everything from cars to smartphones.
Intel’s projects in the U.S. are already closer to becoming operational. Chips market leader TSMC has large-scale plans in the U.S. while limiting itself to a smaller, less advanced manufacturing project in Europe.
Shelving projects
In July, POLITICO reported that Intel had already quietly shelved smaller projects in France and Italy. The company is also planning to cut staff and spin out costly manufacturing unit to address its cash drain.
Intel had pitched the plant in Germany, and a supporting €5 billion factory in Poland, in 2022, right after the EU’s then internal market chief Thierry Breton had presented a plan to claim a larger share of the global microchips industry.
Essential to that plan would be billions of euros in public support from German and Polish governments, with some €10 billion from Germany alone. Germany’s pledge faced a delay after it struggled to find funding after a court wouldn’t let it repurpose an emergency fund.
