CEPE: Boiling Pressure

You are the new Chairman of the CEPE Board. What is on your agenda for your term?

André Vieira de Castro:  It is in fact an honour and a huge responsibility to lead CEPE in these unforeseen times. We have a strong team at CEPE and our main focus is to be always driven by our general motto: “One Voice”. We must be tight, we must use all the resources available – which are not only the direct ones.

Besides our own team, we have the EuPia task force, we have the Sector Groups elements, we have the National Associations teams (of course, in due proportion to what is their own capacity to help us), and we even have the lobbying capacity of all the Board Members at their own companies and markets. To keep all these stakeholders rowing towards the same goal is my major concern at this moment. I believe that if we achieve that, all other obvious goals will be achieved.

What are the pressing issues for you as Chairman and the coatings industry?

André Vieira de Castro: Nobody could imagine the impact of a pandemic crisis like Covid-19 brought us. This is something that was way out of our risk-analysis. We see different impacts in the deco sector (which boomed 2020) to powder and industrial coatings (depending on how will international trade be reestablished) or even automotive coatings (OEM or car refinishing, with all the turmoil around the automotive market as a whole). So in this context, CEPE’s role is even more relevant in regard to the TiO₂ status, isocyanates restrictions, biocides usage and poison centres harmonisation, just to state the more relevant ones.

All this comes in hand with a sustainability policy that we want to underline all our activities and projects. Last but not least, we are trying to accommodate or negotiate the impact of Brexit on trade, on REACH, on budget, on whatever results of this exit. The question was about pressure… I would say, it is kind of boiling right now!