Contribution to the European Green Deal Industrial Plan
InvestEU will support the Green Deal Industrial Plan to enhance the competitiveness of Europe's net-zero industry and the fast transition to climate neutrality. Many InvestEU projects already support the goals of the Green Deal Industrial Plan.
The Plan aims to provide a more supportive environment for the scaling up of the EU's manufacturing capacity for the net-zero technologies and products required to meet Europe's ambitious climate targets. It is based on four pillars: a predictable and simplified regulatory environment, speeding up access to finance, enhancing skills, and open trade for resilient supply chains. The first pillar of the plan is about a simpler regulatory framework.
The Commission proposed the Net-Zero Industry Act (16 March 2023) to identify goals for net-zero industrial capacity and provide a regulatory framework suited for its quick deployment, ensuring simplified and fast-track permitting, promoting European strategic projects, and developing standards to support the scale-up of technologies across the Single Market.
The framework will be complemented by the Critical Raw Materials Act (proposed by the Commission on 16 March 2023), to ensure sufficient access to those materials, like rare earths that are vital for manufacturing key technologies and the reform of the electricity market design, to make consumers benefit from the lower costs of renewables.
The second pillar of the plan will speed-up investment and financing for clean technology production in Europe. This is where InvestEU comes in. The Commission is also exploring avenues to achieve greater common financing at EU level to support investments in manufacturing of net-zero technologies, based on an ongoing investment needs assessment. The Commission will work with Member States in the short term, with a focus on REPowerEU, InvestEU and the Innovation Fund, on a bridging solution to provide fast and targeted support. For the mid-term, the Commission intends to give a structural answer to the investment needs, by proposing a European Sovereignty Fund in the context of the review of the Multi-annual financial framework before summer 2023.
The third pillar focuses on enhancing skills while the fourth pillar addresses open trade for resilient supply chains. This includes the creation of an EU network of Free Trade Agreements and other forms of cooperation with partners to support the green transition, as well as a Critical Raw Materials Club and Clean Tech/Net-Zero Industrial Partnerships.