Structural Changes in the Industry of the European Union and Bulgaria. Evolution and Future Challenges after the Crisis

The present paper provides new insights into the transformation process of the EU industry which remains the most important sector of EU economies, in spite of its decreasing share in EU GDP and the loss of jobs in many industrial sectors. During the last 15 years, the structural changes were induced by various factors, including the so-called "servitisation of manufacturing", outsourcing and delocalization of production, especially in labour intensive industries, implementation of new technologies and more recently the effects of the world financial and economic crisis. The crisis has changed expectations regarding the EU industry development both at national and EU level and new questions arise about the necessity of structural changes in manufacturing, based on higher competition. Consequently, taking into consideration all these challenges, the main goal of our paper is to reveal the stance, the development, and the priorities of the EU industry. After a short introduction, in the first section we analyze the main factors which marked the changes in EU industries, as well as the causes and the development of the conception of deindustrialization. In the second section, we deal with peculiarities of the Bulgarian industrial sector, as well as its recent performance despite the overall downturn of the Bulgarian economy after the crisis. Finally, we emphasize the main conclusions.