Brussels pampers European “green” industry

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The race with the United States and China is on. The European Commission unveiled a series of proposals on Thursday, March 16, which can be read as the response of the Old Continent to the massive subsidies from the Chinese and Americans to their national companies, with the aim of facilitating the green transition.

In this war of the giants, the stated objective of Brussels is to maintain Europe’s industrial competitiveness against the rest of the world. The United States has set up, in particular, a vast plan to support green industries known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

At the beginning of February, the European Commission had already outlined its response in its “Green Deal Industrial Plan”. At the time, the measures mentioned were not binding. This time, the European executive is moving up a gear by putting on the table two proposals for regulations of a legislative nature, which would therefore, once completed, be directly applicable in the 27 States of the European Union (EU).

One of these texts concerns the net zero emission industry – according to the expression chosen by the Commission. He intends to create a “acceleration shock” for plant projects in the cleantech (or “clean technologies”). An appendix to the regulation lists the sectors that will be able to benefit from funding and simplified regulatory procedures: they range from solar panels to wind turbines, including batteries, heat pumps and biomethane.

Cover 40% of European needs

According to the institution, the goal is to achieve that, by 2030, the European Union can meet 40% of its needs in these sectors. “We need a regulatory environment that allows us to accelerate the transition to clean energy. This is precisely what this law will allow.”summed up Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The other legislative proposal relates to critical raw materials. It aims to make the EU less dependent on the strategic metals it buys from third countries.

“I am pleased that the EU has finally understood that the transition to a net zero economy can both save the climate and strengthen EU sovereignty, while creating many green jobs”rejoiced the MEP Damien Carême, member of the group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.

European factories move to the United States

In mid-February, the European Parliament had, in a resolution devoted to Europe’s response to the IRA, “decided to put the package on the “made in Europe””, recalls MEP Valérie Hayer, member of the Renew Europe (RE) group. She believes that the Commission has listened to Parliament. According to her, it is crucial to “strengthen European industries before they all go to the United States”. The car manufacturer Volkswagen, for example, has announced that it is abandoning its project for a battery factory in Europe, betting instead on the other side of the Atlantic.

Within the RE group, her Czech colleague Martina Dlabajova warns: “Creating a dependency on subsidies risks being destructive, when our greatest strength is the European single market. Instead of fueling a race for subsidies, we should tackle the underlying causes of our declining competitiveness. » The think tank Bruegel, based in Brussels, says the same thing: it believes that the Commission’s plans are “openly protectionist” and that the tools chosen are not the right ones.

A subsidy war

Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, director of the European program of the think tank I4CE, climate specialist, believes for his part that “The IRA is a wake-up call for the EU” and that the best European response would be “a long-term climate investment plan”. The researcher hopes to see proposals from the Commission in this direction shortly.

For now, the latter is determined to go to the front: “Some people say that we must above all not enter into the subsidy war. I disagree, we did not start the subsidy war, it started in the United States”released the European commissioner Thierry Breton, Monday, March 13, while he was in Paris.

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