Glass for Europe

Executives from Glass for Europe member companies introduce the challenges and opportunities faced by Europe’s flat glass sector and present concrete policy priorities for the next mandate.

Today, the first of a series of five videos is released to mark the launch of the flat glass industry policy manifesto for Europe for the next five years 2024 – 2029.

In June 2024, European citizens will go to the polls to elect new Members of the European Parliament. This event is the first of a series of institutional changes – new European Commission, new President of the European Council, etc. – which will mark the start of a new five-year mandate for the European Institutions. New impetus, policy direction and strategy will emerge from these institutional changes and will guide European policy from 2024 to 2029.

The next five years will be crucial for the European Union as Member States will implement the many pieces of Green Deal legislations and EU institutions will gear up to achieve the 55% CO2 reduction target set by 2030. At the same time, Europe will most likely remain confronted with recurrent extreme and adverse climatic conditions, a challenging energy landscape and growing competition from outside, which puts pressure on Europe’s industry and economy.

In this context, Glass for Europe has decided to go public with a policy manifesto for Europe, entitled ‘A mandate to focus on enabling sustainable transformation’.

With interventions from both flat glass manufacturers’ executives and members of the Glass for Europe secretariat, these videos present the vision of our sector, explain today’s industrial realities, and make concrete policy recommendations. Aside from controversial political debates, the aim is to reach out to policy makers, who desire to hear from the industry leaders how targeted policy choices can make a difference and enable further sustainable transformation in a sector, like flat glass and glazing. This aims to initiate further policy dialogue, along the lines of the participation of Glass for Europe Chairperson, Joana Arreguy from Saint-Gobain, to the Clean transition Dialogue organised on November 30 by EC President Von der Leyen and Vice-President Sefcovic.

Today’s video presents the overall vision of the flat glass sector and introduces four policy priorities which will be further developed in future videos. Stay tuned throughout January and February 2024!

A big thank you to Joana Arreguy, Chairperson of Glass for Europe, who accepted the challenge of providing this all-encompassing intervention in a concise video format and to all participants to the next videos to come.