France hopes to agree with Berlin before “February” to adopt a common European response to the massive US subsidy plan for its industry, considered protectionist, the French Industry Minister said Friday. “We are making progress,” said Roland Lescure in Berlin, on the sidelines of a visit to the electrolyser manufacturing plant of the Siemens Energy and Air Liquide companies, along with his German counterpart Udo Philipp.
The European Council on February 9 and 10 in Brussels “would be a good date to land” and end the discussions, the minister estimated. “We will converge on an agreement by then, I’m pretty sure of that,” she added. Roland Lescure confirmed the desire of the two countries to organize “very soon” a joint visit by their respective finance ministers, Robert Habeck and Bruno Le Maire, to Washington to negotiate possible amendments to President Joe Biden’s climate plan.
Tax credits and protection for European public purchases
The massive aid provided by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to companies established in the United States in the electric vehicle or renewable energy sector is causing great concern in the European Union. The Europeans have been trying for several weeks to obtain repeals to prevent the flight of European companies attracted by US aid. French President Emmanuel Macron is also jockeying to convince his partners to adopt an equally massive European plan. The Germans reject the creation of a European sovereign wealth fund to finance aid to companies.
Roland Lescure welcomed some progress between Paris and Berlin on Friday, in particular on the establishment of “tax credits” to support European industries. An agreement can also be found on the protection of European public purchases, which could be conditional on “environmental content”, he added.
In Brussels, the European Commission is also working on measures “comparable” to US subsidies to protect European industry against the risk of “distortion” of competition, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said in early January.
Source: BFM TV
