Little Streams Make Big Rivers

Key Summary

• A unified electronics ecosystem is gaining influence in Brussels. Advocacy from 68 companies and 17 associations has helped reframe the industry as a connected silicon-to-system value chain.
• Europe is expanding its focus beyond semiconductors. Supply-chain shocks strengthened the case for support across PCB manufacturing, assembly, advanced packaging and system integration.
• EU policy is beginning to reflect that broader ecosystem. Defence electronics programs and the proposed Chips Act 2.0 recognize the importance of PCBs, IC substrates and electronics manufacturing.
• Continued industry engagement is essential. Companies must keep sharing data and real-world insight to help shape Europe’s next generation of electronics and industrial policies.

By Alison James, senior director, European government relations, Global Electronics Association, with Philip Stoten, journalist, speaker and host specialising in the global electronics manufacturing services industry

There is a French saying I am fond of, and I used it to open my presentation in Paris: les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières. Little streams make big rivers. It is, to my mind, the whole of European government relations in six words. No single company, however large, and no single association, however active, changes the direction of European policy on its own. But enough voices, aligned and patient, moving in the same direction, become a current that is very hard to ignore. That is the story of the last few years for our industry, and it is worth telling, because it is easy to forget how far we have come.

Rewind just a few years. The electronics industry was not thought of as an ecosystem, by itself or by anyone in Brussels. It was siloed. Semiconductors were one conversation, printed circuit boards another, assembly another still, each speaking for itself, none speaking for the whole. Policymakers, understandably, saw fragments rather than a system. And a fragmented industry is easy to overlook, because it never quite adds up to a priority.

Then came the shocks. The pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine exposed, brutally, how dependent Europe had become and how fragile its supply chains were. Out of that came an understanding we had been trying to convey for years: that the whole is only as strong as its weakest link, that a chain running from silicon to system is exactly that, a chain, and that a dependency anywhere in it is a vulnerability everywhere. That reframing, from fragments to ecosystem, changed everything that followed.

So, with many of you, we started a call to action. It was supported by 68 companies and 17 trade associations across the European Union, and I want to dwell on that number, because it is the saying made real. Sixty-eight streams. Seventeen more. Each one, on its own, a modest voice. Together, a river that Brussels could not step around. We asked for an industrial strategy for the entire ecosystem, not just chips. We asked for funding instruments that reached beyond semiconductors to the back end, to boards and assembly and integration. We asked for long-term demand instruments, a European preference for critical industries. And we asked for better framework conditions, less administrative burden, better terms for investment.

I will not pretend the European process is quick or simple. It is neither. There are 27 member states, multiple parties, genuinely different ideologies, and all of them have to align at a high level before anything moves. Someone once said democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, and anyone who works in Brussels feels that in their bones. But slow is not the same as immovable. And the current we built has moved real things.

Let me point to what the streams have carried. In the first European defence industry programme, adopted this year, defence electronics was not an afterthought, it was prioritised, and critically, the definition included printed circuit boards and IC substrates alongside semiconductors. We had argued, with the evidence of our own studies, that Europe cannot be autonomous in defence without a reinforced electronics ecosystem from silicon to system, and that argument landed. We estimate that programme could generate 350 million euros or more in new defence electronics capacity across Europe.

Then there is the Chips Act. The first one was an important instrument but a narrow one, focused on semiconductors. We spent the last couple of years in an active campaign, with your executives, your data, your voices, to make the case that the ecosystem does not stop at the chip. And in the proposal for Chips Act 2.0, the European Commission has recognised exactly that: first-of-a-kind funding not only for semiconductor manufacturing but for electronics manufacturing and integration, and a new category of strategic projects explicitly intended to reinforce the value chain, with printed circuit board assembly named in the text. A few years ago that would have been unthinkable. It is now on the table. That is what a river does.

I would be doing you a disservice if I suggested the work is finished. It is not, and this is the part I most want you to hear. A proposal is not a regulation. The negotiations and fine-tuning on the Chips Act will continue for months, and industry has to stay at the table for every line of it, because in the end it all comes down to the legal text, what is in it, what is left out, and whether it actually helps you. The Industrial Accelerator Act is a beginning, not a destination; the made-in-Europe content criteria for electric vehicles are the first instrument of their kind, and how they evolve depends on us staying engaged. The Cloud and AI Development Act is coming, and with it the question we will explore in our new study: do we have the electronics we need, and who is capturing the value? And defence is not going away as a priority; if anything it is intensifying.

All of which brings me back to the stream and the river. The temptation, when a few battles have been won, is to assume the current will carry itself. It will not. The moment the voices fall quiet, the moment companies decide government is someone else's problem, the river starts to run dry. Government can feel very far from your daily reality of meeting customer demand and fighting supply shortages. But it is also very close, closer than it has ever been to the decisions that will shape whether this industry thrives. Policy that is not fed by industry data and industry voices drifts away from industry needs.

So my ask is simple, and it is the same one I made in Paris. Keep contributing to your stream. Give us the data, the evidence, the real facts from your factories. Stay at the table, at the local level, the national level and the European level, and keep explaining who we are and why we matter, because our policymakers do not always know, and they cannot act on what they do not understand. We have proved, together, that the water rises when we do. Let us keep it rising.