The world economy is going through turbulent times. This obviously also impacts on the textile industry, being so globally interconnected. In less then two years, our industry went through a deep crisis – caused by the Covid pandemic – then making a strong recovery, and now back into uncertainty, as a result of the war in Ukraine, causing energy price peaks, inflationary pressures and drop in consumer confidence.
In the middle of that turbulent period, the European Commission launched its most ambitious plan ever, to push the textile and apparel industry towards a new circular business model, based on sustainability and transparency. The “EU Textile Strategy”, released in March 2022, will move our sector towards a more regulated industry, with currently 16 pieces of legislation under construction.
That makes a lot of changes to cater for, demanding flexibility and resilience from our 160,000 European textile entrepreneurs, but also any other textile manufacturer wants to sell his products on the EU Single Market.
EURATEX asks the European institutions to create a coherent and smart regulatory framework, to provide funding to invest in innovation and to stimulate a demand for sustainable textiles.
Textile entrepreneurs need to re-invent themselves if they want to be part of this paradigm shift. Competitiveness will no longer be based on price only, but relate to quality, sustainability, innovation and compliance.