Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2678 actions· ✨ 92 recent

On 15 October 2025 the German Federal Cabinet adopted the Microelectronics Strategy of the Federal Government, jointly presented by the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE). The strategy is the first comprehensive cabinet-adopted German microelectronics policy framework in over a decade and operationalises Germany's contribution to the European Chips Act envelope. It is organised around three pillars — Research, Skilled Labour and Production — and creates a "Chips Office" to coordinate stakeholder interaction and implementation. It establishes a competence centre for chip design and a flagship "supercomputer in the car" project, and is framed as a key implementation instrument under the High-Tech Agenda Germany (HTAD) and as Germany's contribution to the September 29 2025 Semicon Declaration signed by all 27 EU member states calling for a revised EU Chips Act II.

The German Federal Cabinet adopted a 49-measure cross-sectoral supply-side reform package on 17 July 2024 alongside the draft 2025 Federal Budget, aimed at reversing Germany's decade-long slide in global competitiveness rankings (from 6th to 24th since 2014). The package covers tax and social-security exemptions for overtime and weekend work, foreign skilled-worker incentives (Aktivrente / extended short-time-work rules), bureaucracy reduction targeting ~€944m/yr in compliance-cost savings, flexible working-time arrangements, energy-price relief for industry (Strompreispaket), accelerated infrastructure and planning-procedure reforms, expanded investment deductions and degressive depreciation for movable assets, and a raised R&D-allowance ceiling. The initiative is the supply-side / regulatory-reform complement to the simultaneously adopted SVIKG €500bn special infrastructure fund and is structurally analogous to the UK Mansion House Reforms and France's France 2030 productivity-enhancement pillar.

On 20 March 2024 the German Federal Cabinet adopted the Nationale Hafenstrategie, the first comprehensive cross-modal sea-and-inland port strategy succeeding the 2015 Nationales Hafenkonzept. Developed jointly by the federal government, the coastal and inland-port Länder, port industry associations and the ver.di union under BMDV (now BMV) leadership, the strategy is structured around five fields of action and a "living document" measures part containing approximately 140 operative measures. It targets the competitiveness of German sea and inland ports against pressures from the energy transition, Russia's war on Ukraine, post-COVID supply-chain restructuring, Brexit and shifts in world trade.

The German Federal Cabinet adopted the Fortschreibung (update) of the 2020 Nationale Wasserstoffstrategie on 26 July 2023, led by BMWK (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action). The update doubles Germany's domestic electrolyser-capacity target from 5 GW to at least 10 GW by 2030, sets a hydrogen-demand target of 95–130 TWh/year by 2030 (rising to 360–500 TWh by 2045), and lays out a four-pillar framework covering supply (domestic + import diversification), infrastructure (H2-Kernnetz core network), demand (industrial decarbonisation + heavy-mobility), and the action framework (€18 bn KTF allocation, IPCEI Hy2Tech/Hy2Use, H2Global double-auction import mechanism, Klimaschutzverträge/carbon contracts for difference). It is the parent authority for subsequent instruments including the H2-Beschleunigungsgesetz and the Oct 2024 Bundesnetzagentur approval of the Wasserstoff-Kernnetz.