The European Commission will present proposals this week that will both increase access to critical raw materials and spread strategically important green technologies. This was stated by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
The European Commission is now trying to take the next step in its attempt to compete on a more equal footing with the United States and China. According to von der Leyen, both countries use state aid to an extent that requires action.
- We Europeans must become better at looking after our own green industry. We need to speed up and simplify procedures. And we need to provide better access to public and private financing, says Ursula von der Leyen.
She points out that the market for climate-neutral technologies is expected to triple by 2030.
- In other words - the race is on. We must act together if we want to remain frontrunners, says Ursula von der Leyen.
Central to achieving this goal are two proposals. One proposal is to make the EU more independent of China, especially when it comes to raw materials. In the second proposal - called the Net-Zero Industry Act - the EU Commission will increase the share of important green technology in the EU.
- With the Net-Zero Industry Act, we will set the ambition that by 2030 we ourselves will be able to produce at least 40 percent of the strategically important green technologies, says von der Leyen.
This objective appears in a draft of the Net Zero Act, which Ritzau has seen. Here, the EU Commission points to faster case processing as one of the ways to increase the EU's share of green technologies.
Case processing within a year
The draft proposes, among other things, that the special technologies should be able to be processed within 12 months if their annual output exceeds one gigawatt. Or nine months if the annual production is less than one gigawatt. For comparison, the Danish government will this year, for example, launch a large tender for offshore wind, totaling nine GW.
The targets for the pace of approvals may change in the final proposal that the EU Commission will present. But fundamentally, the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) is positive about faster clarification for companies.
- There has really been a demand for this, says DI's European policy manager, Rikke Wetendorff Nørgaard.
However, DI is concerned about the way the EU Commission will speed up the processing of cases.
This must be done by a company applying to implement a so-called Net Zero Resilience Project. This means that you apply to implement a project that falls within the strategically important green technologies that the EU wants to increase the share of. Or in other words: you must first apply for approval in order to gain access to the faster approvals.
- It may sound a bit Kafkaesque. In any case, we are concerned about whether new and lengthy processes are being created for approving Net Zero projects. Because speed and transparency are so crucial. That is what the Americans have succeeded in with their setup. It is easy to access and intuitive to understand, says Rikke Wetendorff Nørgaard.
DI will also keep an eye on which technologies are included in the EU Commission's positive list. This will determine which Danish companies will potentially be able to obtain faster approval. And get easier access to public and private financing.
/ritzau/
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