Along with the Green Deal, the von der Leyen Commission immediately started to look at how to adopt an industrial strategy that would promote EU competitiveness and support the Commission's self-assigned "geopolitical" role by boosting strategic autonomy.

One lesson of the Great Recession has been that countries with higher shares of industry in their GDP seemed to be less affected by the crisis. Consequently, the call for an industrial renaissance has become stronger. Industrial policy has now become a top priority in countries where it was not...