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Restructuring is a complex and global phenomenon occurring throughout Europe. Recent analyses of restructuring operations in the European Union are part of the search for Community-wide values vis-à-vis globalization. European policy thus triggers and frames the restructuring process and plays an important role in addition to that played by other institutions at the local, regional, national, and international level. This paper is divided into two parts. The first part highlights industrial policy within the European Union by examining first the normative framework for EU industrial policy as set by primary EU law. The paper then reviews the normative genesis of that policy within the framework of secondary EU law, as provided for, in particular, by communications issued in 2005 and 2007. The second part of the paper focuses on the importance of coordinating European policies and on the interactions between EU industrial policy and the restructuring process. It does so by offering an analysis of European soft law measures aimed at ensuring the influence of industrial policy in this process.