EU auto industry welcomes Green Deal Industry Plan

EU auto industry welcomes Green Deal Industry Plan

ACEA — 2023-02-01

News from Brussels

ACEA welcomes the 1st February 2023 communication by the European Commission on the Green Deal Industry Plan (GDIP), as it sets out four fundamental pillars for Europe to protect its green tech industry.

Europe needs a strong response to the fundamental challenges posed by the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the risks it creates for ‘investment leakage’ out of the EU. Without stronger financial and regulatory support for nascent industries, the scale of the subsidies available in the US will attract green and advanced technologies at Europe’s expense – from development to production and manufacturing.

If successfully deployed, the GDIP (in the form of the Net Zero Industry Plan, REPowerEU, the EU Sovereignty Fund and the revised Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework), can help provide a bulwark to keep investment in the EU.

Our industry is juggling huge challenges – implementing decarbonisation pathways, while defending its global competitiveness and securing jobs and industrial production in the EU. We need clear leadership by the European institutions and member states. European automobile manufacturers stand fully by their commitment to decarbonise road transport, but need to have the right framework conditions.

COVID and the war in Ukraine have also demonstrated some weaknesses in global supply chains and posed other challenges to European industry, such as the high cost of energy.

While GDIP by itself cannot address all these issues, we urgently need this new approach to European industrial policy to help us reach environmental and decarbonisation objectives, while supporting our industrial base.

The GDIP should provide:

• A substantial investment framework to support the innovative green and digital industries, with more flexible implementation of state aid rules.
  • Current programmes focus on innovation and development, but GDIP should also provide a framework to boost investment in large-scale manufacturing projects.   
• Recognition that one of the key challenges to developing these industries is the current high cost of energy, and that access to low-carbon energy at competitive prices is a key part of our transition.
• A structure that does not require too much bureaucratic red tape or time to access funding.
  • One of the key obstacles to benefitting from the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework (TCTF) is its strict eligibility criteria and bureaucratic demands. ACEA would welcome the TCTF if it can ease this administrative burden.
• Strict coherence between other EU policy initiatives in the areas of industrial policy, decarbonisation and strategic autonomy, for example the Critical Raw Materials Act and the Chips Act.
• Limits on the regulatory burden being placed on transformational industries. The ‘competitiveness check’ on all new regulation should closely examine proposals like Euro 7 that risk slowing the green transformation of our sector.
• A non-discriminatory framework that avoids replicating the trade protectionist elements of the IRA.
• State aid rules that are balanced between member states’ interests and the economic level playing field. The proper functioning of the Single Market remains a priority for the automobile industry.

ACEA welcomes the GDIP’s focus on the need to transform the European labour force to green and digital technology capabilities, as skills and human resources are a fundamental element of this transition.

"Europe needs a strong response to the fundamental challenges posed by the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the risks it creates for ‘investment leakage’ out of the EU."