I refer to the interview with Labour leader Joseph Muscat in which the interviewer asserted that “the manufacturing sector is disappearing all across Europe” (The Sunday Times, January 20).

Europe’s manufacturing industry has reacted in a manner which is possibly best described by the title of ‘Next Generation Manufacturing’. Some of the elements of this approach include open innovation and disruptive technologies, the biomass industry, wind power and energy and a vast range of other activities and production techniques being constantly developed in both small and large enterprises.

To write off Germany’s still existing manufacturing and exporting strength, Italy’s steel production capacity and its creative Emilia Romagna enterprises, the UK’s quality alimentary products sector by asserting that “the manufacturing sector is disappearing all across Europe” is incorrect.

One can approach an analysis of the current state of manufacturing industry in Europe in any one of a number of ways. A general structural profile will not tell anyone the whole story. It is when one gets into sectoral and country analysis that one really starts to see the whole picture.

Consider also, for example, that some transformation processes are often not classified as manufacturing: logging for example is classified in forestry, materials recovery is considered as primarily waste processing; bulk-breaking and redistribution are classified as distributive trades.

At the European Commission there is no acceptance that the manufacturing sector is disappearing in Europe. On the contrary, the Commission continues to pursue its March 2010 adoption of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. The objective is an integrated industrial policy for the globalisation era, a policy that seeks to support a strong, diversified and competitive industrial base.

Even as some countries continue to struggle with worrying public finances (and that of course includes Malta) it is already obvious, from the way that the current EU budget talks are progressing, that at the heart of entrepreneurial Europe there is an assumption that manufacturing industry will still be an integral reality of the European economy for as long as one can see into the next EU financial perspectives timeframe.