“Good news for the climate, good news for the economy, and a clear message to the United States and the Inflation Reduction Act. Now let's go and dance with the Council of the European Union!”. It was with this statement that Christian Ehler MEP (EPP, German) welcomed the approval of his report on the Net-Zero Industry Act by the plenary of the European Parliament (376 votes in favour, 139 against, 116 abstentions) on Tuesday 21 November in Strasbourg.
The validated text makes significant changes to the European Commission’s initial proposal. MEPs extended the scope of the text to the entire supply chain, including components, materials and production machinery. They also propose a broader list of technologies and more selective selection criteria for public procurement contracts.
Although the vote was fairly lengthy, no additional amendments were made to the text approved by Parliament’s Committee on Industry in October (see EUROPE 13279/13).
Seventeen technology categories
As anticipated (see EUROPE 13277/10), Parliament has abolished the Commission’s two initial lists, ‘strategic’ and ‘net-zero’ to propose a single list comprising 17 categories.
MEPs give Member States the freedom to choose the technologies they consider to be ‘strategic’ and which will benefit from advantageous installation conditions. However, this choice is governed by article 10 of the text, which sets out the criteria that projects must meet.
This flexibility in the choice of technologies is an essential change, according to Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, French), who claims that “Europe runs the risk of failing by keeping to a restricted list”. “This enlarged list allows each country to look for what it considers to be the most essential”, he said.
However, this extended list is likely to cause difficulties during the interinstitutional negotiations in the trilogue. The Member States in the EU Council seem to want to keep two differentiated lists, and are still intensively debating the inclusion of the nuclear sector (see EUROPE 13271/9).
A few days earlier, several NGOs had written a letter to Parliament, asking MEPs to “vote on a shortlist”, and to focus on technologies “that have been proven to have a substantial impact on achieving the EU’s 2030 climate targets”.
The beginnings of a European preference
Another notable change introduced by the European Parliament is the modification of the criteria for access to public procurement, which we have already detailed in our columns, as well as the addition of several pre-qualification criteria for projects submitted by companies from third countries (see EUROPE 13277/10).
“The aim is to develop European initiatives and EU technologies”, explained Tsvetelina Penkova (S&D, Bulgarian). Christophe Grudler shares this vision: “It’s an embryo of European preference. We absolutely want to encourage Member States to buy European technologies, so that they don’t have to look elsewhere for them in the future.”
The MEPs’ text also increases the time required to obtain permits (Article 6) for projects, from 9 to 12 months for ‘ordinary’ projects and from 6 to 9 months for ‘strategic’ projects. A new paragraph specifies that in the absence of a response from the authorities within the specified timeframe, “the specific interim steps [will] be deemed to have been approved”.
However, a number of voices were raised in criticism of the validated text. The Greens/EFA group condemned this as a “real missed opportunity”. “We had to compete with the ambitions and billions of dollars of the American IRA. We end up with no priorities, no vision, and not a single euro”, criticised France’s Damien Carême.
“This is the first time that the importance of social conditions for a successful industrial policy has been recognised at EU level. However, unlike the IRA, the text does not make access to subsidies dependent on compliance with labour law” deplores the European Trade Union Confederation in a press release.
Trilogue negotiations could begin as early as December. But the EU Council has yet to decide on its position on this issue.
To see the text adopted by the European Parliament: https://aeur.eu/f/9o2
To see the NGO newsletter: https://aeur.eu/f/9nq (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)