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:
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."