Unacceptable in times where jobs are threatened und United States supports carbon neutral industry


“The proposal of the European Council for REPowerEU and the ETS is completely unacceptable because it empties the Innovation Fund exactly in a time when we need more support for industry to create futureproof jobs.” This statement came from Peter Liese, environmental spokesperson of the biggest group in the European Parliament and Rapporteur for the ETS and for the related part in REPowerEU from ENVI side.

The two legislative files will come in the final state of negotiations both next week on Tuesday, 13 December (RPEU) and Friday, 16 & 17 December (ETS). “If one adds the Council’s mandate on both files, the Innovation Fund that should support industry on the way to decarbonize and create futureproof jobs in a changing world will be reduced from 930 million allowances according to the Commission proposal to 412.5 million allowances. This is even less than in the existing ETS and this is unacceptable in a time when industry has a lot of challenges and we still ask them to achieve very ambitious climate targets and at the same time the US office with their IRA provides a huge support in particular for those companies that commit to the path of climate neutrality. That’s why we have to fight hard.

The problem is that finance ministers are only looking at the short term budgetary consequences. They don’t have any idea how to steer the future and they don’t have any idea about the European added value of any project. Moreover, the different formation of the Council didn’t really match. They were emptying the Innovation Fund twice in different formats. I hope the two tracks will be merged we come to a reasonable compromise next week,” explained Peter Liese.