Europe’s aviation ecosystem is one of its greatest success stories. Its resilience is no accident: it is the product of deep industrial integration, and a decades-long commitment to free trade and global standards, creating a network that is both local and global. As Europe navigates global competition, how we support this ecosystem has become a question of strategic urgency.
Avio Aero’s Rivalta facility near Turin designs and manufactures parts at the heart of engines flying today. Without the flow of these critical components, air traffic would halt.
As a proud European industrial partner, GE Aerospace is helping to invent the future of flight on the ground in 18 countries. Click to discover our footprint.
These parts require aerospace-grade materials that cannot be fully sourced within the EU, making global collaboration a necessity. This ecosystem is now the test case for ‘European preference’, a policy reducing strategic dependencies by prioritizing EU-based companies in public projects. The critical question remains: will this policy be defined by a corporate HQ flag, or by real value created on the ground?
This is no theoretical concern. A narrow, ownership-based policy directly threatens the innovation we build every day. At Avio Aero’s Cameri plant in Novara, we use additive manufacturing to produce ultra-lightweight engine turbine blades. This feeds into collaborations with over 100 European universities and SMEs on R&D programs like the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking. A rigid policy could punish partners who have already localized production. The consequences would be self-defeating: Europe would limit access to strategic technology and weaken its top companies, dismantling the very models of industrial strength it seeks to create.
Europe’s success as an aerospace powerhouse was built on an outward-looking bloc championing open collaboration
A smarter approach would reward concrete EU added value: R&D, high-skilled jobs, and sustained investment. This would incentivize non-EU companies to invest even more in European technologies, bolstering resilience while preserving the collaborative spirit that drives our industry forward.
This is our daily reality as a European industrial partner. Prague, our global turboprop headquarters, assembling the Catalyst engine, world’s first clean-sheet turboprop. In Bielsko-Biała, teams manufacture some of the world’s most advanced aircraft and helicopter engine turbine blades. In France, our CFM partnership with Safran builds engines for the world’s best-selling aircraft, the Airbus A320 family, while in Germany, we partner with over 1,000 suppliers. This footprint is a live model of defining "European" by contribution: deeply integrated, built over decades, and delivering high-value jobs and sovereign capabilities.
As Europe navigates global competition, how we support this ecosystem has become a question of strategic urgency
Now, with crucial politicized files like the Industrial Accelerator Act moving quickly, it is time to set the record straight on what constitutes real European value. In crafting industrial strategy, policymakers need not reinvent the wheel – they need only empower the partners anchored here for decades, some longer than the Single Market itself. We have diversified suppliers, whilst investing in local suppliers to strengthen production capabilities. A smart framework would leverage this proven strength, not discard it.
Europe’s success as an aerospace powerhouse was built on an outward-looking bloc championing open collaboration. To turn inward now would abandon the very model that secured this success. Recognizing that true ‘European value’ is measured by contribution is the only way to guarantee a resilient, competitive, and truly autonomous industrial future. The question for policymakers is simple: will you continue to cultivate the partners who build that success, or will you risk turning them away?
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