Germany and Italy: seizing opportunities, tackling challenges together

Germany and Italy are among the largest industrial production countries in Europe. With close cooperation in the area of Industrie 4.0, the Italian Ministry of Economy, in particular through the Nuovo Piano Nazionale Transizione 4.0, and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy are exploiting future opportunities and tackling challenges together. Together they want to promote the innovative power and scalability of Industrie 4.0 solutions.

A joint agreement identifies the three areas of cooperation: standardisation, SME support and labour, education and training.

Background

On 18 January 2017, Sigmar Gabriel, the then Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy and his Italian counterpart Carlo Calenda hosted the German-Italian Business Conference #Digitalassieme. Germany and France agreed to intensify cooperation in the digitalisation of industry and defined shared priorities in a joint agreement. Since 2017, cooperation with Italy has taken place within the framework of the Trilateral Cooperation and with the involvement of France.