Timetable for interinstitutional negotiations on ‘STEP’ platform is suspended pending outcome of European Summit on 1 February

There cannot be a ‘trilogue’ without a prior agreement at the European Council meeting on the revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) on 1 February. However, according to a source close to the matter, the co-legislators will be discussing the ‘STEP’ regulation, the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform, for the first time on Monday 15 January in the early evening, at an ‘informal meeting’.

The main purpose of this meeting is to clearly set out the positions of the various parties, which are currently quite far apart. However, no agreement can be reached until the European Heads of State have validated the revision of the MFF, which includes the amount allocated to the platform (see EUROPE 13311/21).

The main issues surrounding the text are the amount of new money to be allocated to ‘STEP’ and its specific scope.

For their part, the parliamentarians amended the terminology of the text to bring it into line with the terms used in the Net Zero Industry Act’ (NZIA) and the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). Gone are ‘deep tech’ and ‘clean tech’, replaced by ‘net zero’ technologies and biotechnologies, as defined in the NZIA (see EUROPE 13267/9).

The EU Council’s mandate slightly modifies the scope of action, specifying that “clean and resource-efficient” technologies must be taken into account and extending it to the deployment and implementation of the various technologies mentioned (see EUROPE 13225/4).

But the main sticking point is the final amount to be allocated to ‘STEP’. In its text, the Commission recommended €10 billion. The MEPs increased this amount to €13 billion. But the EU Council, forced by the revision of the MFF, has drastically reduced the total envelope, which now stands at just one and a half billion euros.

Two other meetings are already scheduled: one on 31 January, on the eve of the European Summit; the second at the very beginning of February. The latter could be the first official trilogue, should the EU27 reach an agreement on the revision of the MFF. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)