Davos, von der Leyen launches an industrial plan for the Green Deal: “Limited state aid, we must increase EU funding”
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The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, brings Brussels’ concerns about US subsidies for the energy transition and price containment to the Davos World Economic Forum: “Some elements of theInflation Reduction Act raise various concerns about incentives targeted at companies,” he said in his speech to the world’s finance elite. “For this we are working with the US to find a solution, for example by ensuring that European companies and European electric cars can also “They will benefit” from the 369 billion dollar aid programme. “Our goal – he added – should be to avoid interruptions in transatlantic trade. We should ensure that our respective incentive programs are fair and mutually reinforcing, and we should also establish how we can jointly benefit from this massive investment. At the heart of the shared vision is our belief that competition and trade are the key to accelerating clean technology and climate neutrality.”
Von der Leyen explained that the goal is “to avoid shocks in transatlantic trade and investment” and that “we must ensure that our incentive programs are fair and mutually reinforcing”. The concern is that US incentives will attract investments in that area, from American companies obviously but also from European ones. For this reason, Brussels has been pressing for countermeasures from many quarters. The Economy Minister has also returned to office Giancarlo Giorgettiwho today at Ecofin in *Brussels remarked that “simply easing state aid rules is not a solution because it would be disproportionate to benefit member states that enjoy a larger budgetary margin, thus aggravating economic divergences at the of the Union and consequent fragmentation of the internal market”. And again: “We could exploit the effectiveness of common tools such as Next Generation EU and SURE, which can be successfully replicated in the context of the current crisis”.
On the other hand, von der Leyen herself seems to be taking a further step: the EU must “make the transition to zero emissions without creating new dependencies” and to do so “we have a plan. An industrial plan for the Green Deal”. In essence, “state aid would be a limited solution”: to avoid fragmentation of the single market “we must increase EU funding” and “for the medium term we will prepare a European Sovereign Fund in the mid-term review of our budget in 2023“. On the regulatory level, “we will propose a new ‘NetZero Industry Act’ along the lines of the Chips Act. And also the EU commissioner Paul Gentilonion the sidelines of Ecofin, assures that at the EU level “on the one hand we need to review the rules on state aid, without ruining the European model, but we also need common funds. Because the dimension must be European to strengthen our competitiveness: not we can only react on a national level.”
Davos sees recession: ‘Inflation past peak’. But Italy is not at the table
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The goal is to arrive with an organic and effective response to extraordinary European summit of 9 and 10 February in Brusselswhich will be devoted to this problem.
From von der Leyen also came a reference to China which has “openly encouraged European energy-intensive companies to relocate to its territory” and “we see aggressive attempts by China to attract our industrial capacity”: even if it will be necessary to continue to collaborate, in the name of ‘de-risking’ rather than decoupling between the EU and China, the EU “will use all the tools to manage unfair practices” and “we will not hesitate to open investigations if we assess that our supplies or other markets are distorted by subsidies” from China.
Davos sees recession: ‘Inflation past peak’. But Italy is not at the table
by our correspondent Tonia Mastrobuoni
German gas admissions: ‘We destroyed the market’
German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck spoke of other issues, but with surprising clarity, speaking to Bloomberg again from Davos. In particular, he retraced the summer period in which gas had reached well over 300 euros per megawatt hour in Amsterdam, a phase that seems light years away now that – thanks to the mild temperatures – we have dropped below 60 euros. “It’s true, in August we destroyed the gas market but our mission was to fill the stocks and certainly by doing so we raised prices up to 350 euros per megawatt hour – he admitted – But I think we did the right thing. If we hadn’t done it and now had insufficient reserves, everyone would be asking why we didn’t think of it sooner.”
The recession arrives, but Italian companies are less pessimistic. Toselli (PwC): “They have more flexibility”
by our correspondent Andrea Greco
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