Brussels presents tomorrow the main lines of its proposal to boost green investments against the USA






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Archive – The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. – Claudio Centonze/European Commis / DPA

The European Commission will present on Wednesday the outlines of its proposal to boost investment in “clean” industries to counteract the ‘doping’ of green subsidies that other powers such as the United States and China have injected into their industry.

The draft of the communication to be presented on Wednesday, to which Europa Press has had access, is in line with the plan already announced by the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the economic forum in Davos (Switzerland), focused on streamlining permits to facilitate investment in renewable energy and make state aid more flexible.

This is a first framework intended to guide the debate of the leaders of the European Union (EU) at their next meeting on February 9 and 10, as Brussels was asked to do at its December meeting.

“It is an element for discussion, but not the totality of the proposals that the Commission will make in the framework of our strategy so that the industry can accompany us towards the objective of energy neutrality in 2050”, clarified this Tuesday at a press conference the spokesman of the Community Executive, Eric Mamer.

Thus, Brussels will not go into details about the measures until it has heard the contributions of the Twenty-seven, to return with specific proposals in time for the next European summit, to be held in late March.

Among the objectives outlined by Von der Leyen were the proposal for a new Net Zero Industry Act, similar to the draft legislation on chips, which aims to set “clear” targets for European clean technology from 2030 onwards.

In addition, a Critical Raw Materials Club is proposed to work with like-minded partners – from the United States to Ukraine – to collectively strengthen supply chains, diversify suppliers and reduce the EU’s 98 percent dependence on China for the manufacture of key technologies such as wind power generation, hydrogen storage and batteries.

Another aim of the plan is to temporarily relax European state aid rules to “streamline and simplify” them, for example with simple tax relief models and targeted aid for clean technology production facilities to help counter the risks of offshoring from foreign subsidies such as the $369 billion U.S. clean technology investment plan.

However, Von der Leyen has already stressed that state aid will be “a limited solution that only a few Member States will be able to use”, so that, in the medium term, the solution to counteract the impact of US subsidies on the European economy will involve the creation of a sovereign wealth fund that will also prevent “fragmentation” of the market.

Source: (EUROPA PRESS)