€53bn failed to close the gap: the EU still produces just a fifth of the chips it uses
EU industry ministers debated the proposal for a "Chips Act 2.0" at the Competitiveness Council in Brussels on Thursday 24 September. The new set of instruments targets the demand side and supply-chain monitoring, not just factory building. The backdrop is stark numbers: Europe still produces only about a fifth of the chips it consumes.
Semiconductor policy on the Council agenda
When EU industry ministers met at the Competitiveness Council in Brussels on Thursday 24 September, semiconductor policy was on the agenda, according to the meeting programme reproduced by EU Today (EU Today, 22 September 2026). According to EU Today's reporting from the meeting (EU Today, 25 September 2026), ministers were examining plans to reduce the Union's dependence on foreign semiconductor suppliers.
The Commission tabled Chips Act 2.0 on 3 June 2026 as part of a broader technological-sovereignty package. According to EU Today's account of the proposal, the aim is explicitly not for Europe to become self-sufficient in semiconductors — but to reduce vulnerabilities in parts of a global supply chain on which European producers remain heavily dependent.
That is a deliberately lower level of ambition than the word "sovereignty" might suggest: the EU wants to make itself less vulnerable, not independent.
The ballast: what the first Chips Act actually achieved
According to a background note from the Council, prepared for Thursday's debate, the first framework contributed more than €53 billion in public and private investment in semiconductor manufacturing. The framework also supported five advanced pilot lines and an EU-wide network of national competence centres (EU Today, citing the background note).
But production still lags far behind consumption. EU semiconductor consumption reached €41.1 billion in 2025 — equivalent to 10.5 per cent of global shipments — while most manufacturing remained outside the Union. Europe is also heavily dependent on the US and Asia for the most advanced chips, including processors used for artificial intelligence. According to the Commission's data, as reproduced by EU Today, EU-based production amounts to roughly one fifth of European consumption. The figures are known through EU Today's account, but they form the basis on which ministers have been working.
It is against this reckoning that the new proposal must be read: subsidising production capacity has drawn in capital, but the gap between what Europe buys and what it produces persists.
What Chips Act 2.0 actually contains
The proposal shifts the emphasis from the supply side to the demand side. The key instruments, as EU Today describes the Commission's proposal:
- Demand Accelerators — measures intended to help move European semiconductor technology more quickly from research to commercial deployment.
- A Demand Forum — a forum linked to the same purpose of strengthening demand for European semiconductor technologies.
- Innovation procurement — public procurement used as a tool to create a market for European technologies.
- Faster permitting — qualifying strategic semiconductor investments can receive permits through a procedure with a maximum limit of twelve months.
In addition, the Commission proposes a voluntary Business-to-Business Semiconductor Supply Chain Platform — a platform with purposes related to visibility around supply-chain vulnerabilities. The proposal's full content on this point is not known from the available evidence. What can be said is that it is to be voluntary for businesses.
Taken together, the instrument set points in a clear direction: where the first Chips Act financed factories and research infrastructure, the follow-up is to try to create buyers — through public procurement, coordinated demand and faster framework conditions for strategic projects.
The political tension: who benefits from industrial policy?
A recurring question in the debate on European industrial policy is distribution: whether sovereignty policy systematically favours the member states with the largest fiscal room. EU Today points to one concrete example: the Commission's approval this summer of €659 million in German state aid for four semiconductor projects. This is a separate Commission decision — not part of Chips Act 2.0 — but it illustrates the imbalance problem that accompanies any scheme in which member states contribute their own funds.
The Chips Act 2.0 proposal does not in itself resolve this question, and the financing of the demand-side measures is unresolved in the available evidence. Nor is it known from the sources whether financing or distribution featured in the ministerial debate on 24 September, or whether member states disagreed.
The rest of the Council meeting
At the same meeting, ministers were, according to the meeting programme, also due to address the revision of the EU's merger-control rules. EU Today frames both items around the question of whether European companies need greater scale to compete with American and Chinese rivals — without weakening competition in the internal market. It is worth being precise: the link between Chips Act 2.0 and the merger rules is an editorial framing by EU Today, not an official connection made by the Commission or the Council.
According to the meeting programme, ministers were also to be briefed on the Industrial Accelerator Act, the proposed European Competitiveness Fund and a planned 28th corporate regime for businesses. This places the semiconductor file within a broader competitiveness agenda, against the backdrop of negotiations on the EU's next multiannual financial framework for 2028–2034.
Open questions
Several central matters remain open on the available evidence:
- The outcome of the debate. None of the sources covers what ministers actually said or agreed on 24 September. It is unclear whether the debate led to Council conclusions.
- The financing. How the Demand Accelerators, Demand Forum and innovation procurement are to be financed has not been clarified.
- The B2B platform. The proposal's full content on this point is not known from the available evidence — neither how the platform will work in practice, nor what obligations voluntary participation entails.