EU industrial policy as back-to-front industrial policy

Abstract Industrial policy is a substantial enterprise that goes to refashioning the structures of economic activity to realise public goals. To that end, it historically relies on a State-industry resettlement that recasts State-industry relations. This resettlement also generates the economic knowledge that is a prerequisite for achieving these goals and sets out new forms of collective action to stymy change. However, until the 2024 reforms incorporating it within the European Semester, EU Industrial Policy was not associated with any such resettlement. This weak institutionalisation meant, inter alia , its goals proliferated in an undisciplined way, industrial knowledge was weakly embedded, and the Commission was more concerned with vetting than cultivating new forms of collective action. If this policy thus centralised considerable power within the Commission, there is good reason to be sceptical about what will be achieved. To that end, this article argues for an Inter-Institutional Agreement that would both temper these problems and ensure this policy is not simply about collective goals but is a more pluralistic and responsive endeavour. This Agreement would commit the EU to realise three principles. Constraint would require institutional power to be justified and exercised with moderation. Integrit y would require EU institutions to reflect continually on whether individual measures or processes should be sustained. Responsibility would hold them not only accountable for their actions and omissions but also responsible for discharging the wider public interest that falls within their aegis.