(VOVWORLD) - European companies could be made to prioritize production of key products and stockpile goods under draft EU rules that would give the European Commission emergency powers to tackle supply chain crises.
The Single Market Emergency Instrument proposed by the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, on Monday is a response to bottlenecks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The proposal, which echoes similar measures adopted by the United States and Japan, empowers the Commission to order EU states to re-organize supply chains and increase supplies of crisis-relevant goods as quickly as possible, including expanding or re-purposing existing production capacities or setting up new ones and placing crisis-relevant goods on the market.