The European fashion and high-end industries are global leaders accounting for 10% of European exports. European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani met last week with high-level representatives of some of the Europe's main fashion companies to discuss concrete actions for the European fashion industry.

The Commission intends to reinforce the growth and competitiveness of the European fashion industries with a number of short-term actions. To this end, Vice-President Tajani last week discussed key issues and asked for the views of CEOs of fashion and high-end industries on the following actions to:

• Ensure that education and training institutes provide students with required skills through better use of existing alliances, councils and working groups as well as more interaction between industry and institutes;

• Foster creativity, e.g. through match-making between new designers and small producers (WORTH pilot project);

• Foster innovation, e.g. through interoperable e-commerce tools (eBiz project). eBiz utilizes UBL 2.0 for several of its messaging requirements and their vender managed inventory (VMI) model has been incorporated into the new UBL 2.1 release;

• Ensure the protection of intellectual property, e.g. through raising awareness about fake goods;

• Seize opportunities for international trade, e.g. through participation in Missions for Growth;

• Form a regulatory framework to sustain growth, including for example the labelling of authentic leather.