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Along with beautiful scenery and delicious cuisine, Brittany is a hub for cutting-edge innovation, thanks to strategic investments in research and technology. InterDigital established its largest research centre in Rennes in 2019, employing local engineers to develop next-generation video, wireless and artificial intelligence technologies. The company partners with the French Research Institute for Computer Science and Automation and the University of Rennes 1, fostering collaboration with researchers and students. In 2025, InterDigital was awarded ‘Made in Brittany’ accreditation, recognising its regional impact. Learn how InterDigital is investing in European innovation and talent through its state-of-the-art Rennes facility on Invested in Europe.

On Tuesday, 25 November, AmCham EU hosted Miguel Gil Tertre, Head of Cabinet and Thomas Woolfson, Member of Cabinet to Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera, for an exchange with our Board on Europe’s economic agenda. The discussion explored priorities for strengthening Europe’s competitiveness, ensuring a well-functioning Single Market and advancing effective transaction screening. With US companies closely integrated into the EU economy, a shared commitment to boosting investment and innovation remains essential.

European policymakers are increasingly focused on strengthening the EU’s strategic autonomy, reducing strategic dependencies and building greater resilience across critical sectors. This drive is rooted in legitimate concerns about ensuring access to essential goods, increasing the diversity of supply chains and enhancing the EU’s ability to respond to geopolitical and economic challenges. As the EU seeks to address these challenges, its core objective should be to leverage its extensive partnerships and use smart incentives to support the bloc’s long-term competitiveness and security.

Lawmakers are actively considering ways that ‘Made in Europe’ criteria could support these objectives in virtually any process requiring clearance, approval or an auction. Global examples of domestic preference and non-price criteria demonstrate two things. First, if they are designed poorly, they could reduce competitiveness, simplification and resilience. However, they also demonstrate that if they are designed well, they can maximise the value of allies’ economic participation and improve the functioning of the processes they are applied to.

The US’s various ‘Buy America’ programmes provide a useful case study for assessing the risks of different ‘Made in Europe’ regimes. While US procurement and funding programmes with ‘Buy America’ provisions are generally open to foreign-headquartered participants (and actively encourage their participation), they also bring certain categories of risk that should be considered before bringing them to the EU.

If ‘Made in Europe’ effectively excludes firms headquartered in the US and other allied nations, including EU-based subsidiaries of US-headquartered firms, the EU risks introducing more complexity into European public procurement markets and funding programmes. This would ultimately diminish competition and the quality of products and services, while increasing costs and elevating trade tensions that may decreasing the market access of EU-headquartered companies abroad. At a time when the EU is facing urgent competitiveness challenges, policymakers should avoid pursing reactive security and resilience policies that would undermine the EU’s competitiveness goals.

However, if thoughtfully implemented, certain ‘Made in Europe’ regimes could leverage the EU’s Single Market and international partnerships to improve the EU’s competitiveness and resilience.

On Friday, 21 September AmCham EU joined Ambassadors Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative, Andrew Puzder, US Ambassador to the European Union and Bill White, US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium. During the discussion, Malte Lohan, CEO, AmCham EU voiced strong support for the EU-US Framework Agreement, which offers the best path to improve the trade and investment climate, while addressing concerns about the economic impact of broad tariffs. AmCham EU continues to support other key parts of the deal, as well as calling on the European Parliament and Council to quickly adopt the Commission’s tariff reduction proposals with minimal changes.  

AmCham EU’s 2025 Digital Economy Conference took place on Thursday, 20 November with the theme ‘A transatlantic agenda for growth, innovation and simplification’. The event brought together policymakers, regulators and industry leaders to explore how Europe and the US can align efforts to promote responsible innovation, resilient infrastructure and forward-looking regulation in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. 

Malte Lohan, CEO, AmCham EU, opened the conference with remarks highlighting the importance of strong transatlantic partnership to shape digital policy in an increasingly complex global environment. 

The European Commission’s newly introduced Digital Omnibus package is a good starting point for the EU’s digital simplification. Measures such as adjusting the timeline for the application of high-risk AI rules and a reinforced role for the European AI Office are tangible improvements that will give businesses more certainty about how and when they need to meet their compliance obligations. Similarly, the Commission’s launch of a Digital Fitness Check to stress test the digital rulebook and a Data Union Strategy to unlock high-quality data for AI development are important steps. 

However, in certain areas the Commission’s proposal does not go far enough, especially in the harmonisation of cybersecurity obligations. A single entry point for incident reporting helps, but duplication and fragmentation persist across the Network and Information Security Systems Directive 2, the Cyber Resilience Act, the Digital Operational Resilience Act and the General Data Protection Regulation. To cut costs for businesses while raising cyber resilience, the Omnibus should also: 

• Harmonise taxonomies, thresholds and timelines 

• Expand the main establishment principle 

• Align certification and conformity assessments to avoid double audits 

Lessons from other Omnibus initiatives underscore the need for the co-legislators to take swift action and ensure reliable political support behind the Commission’s competitiveness agenda. The stakes for the Digital Omnibus are Single Market-wide. Manufacturers, healthcare and life sciences, financial services, mobility, energy and retail all rely on digital technologies and all face unnecessary burdens from overlapping digital rules. Targeted simplification that reduces duplication and clarifies enforcement promises to accelerate AI adoption, bolster cyber resilience and free resources for investment and jobs across Europe. 

For more detailed recommendations, read our Digital Omnibus position paper.