The Vice-President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, indicated, during a meeting on Wednesday, 3 March, with representatives of the battery industry, his willingness to strengthen national requalification and skills enhancement programmes.
Mr Šefčovič wants to seize the opportunity of a ministerial meeting of the Battery Alliance on 12 March to insist on the development of training programmes in national recovery plans under the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the Just Transition Fund. He is also counting on the support of the cohesion policy and, in particular, the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund plus or the Horizon Europe framework programme (even for a ‘symbolic’ contribution).
The balance sheet of the Battery Alliance continues to be very positive despite the pandemic, according to the European Commission’s press release. Europe has closed the investment gap with its main Asian competitors and has reached €60 billion in 2019, compared with €17 billion in China at the same time, according to the vice-president. Another source of hope for the institution is the boom in the electric vehicle market in 2020, which has reached 10.5% of cars sold in Europe.
To read the full speech from Mr Šefčovič: http://bit.ly/2NXCeYy (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)