Brussels Braces Itself for Contentious Fight Over Extra EU Money

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Brussels Braces Itself for Contentious Fight: The European Union is going to be torn apart over whether or not new EU financing is necessary to help strengthen the bloc’s industrial foundation, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has sounded the starting gun on this contentious discussion.

The European Union (EU) has been exploring methods to assist enhance its competitive edge after being taken off guard by new U.S. legislation that helps North American enterprises at the expense of Europe.

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, climate legislation from the Joe Biden administration, has outraged Brussels over sections deemed protectionist, particularly related to electric vehicles, and on Sunday the Commission chief provided her first meaningful response to the bill.

Brussels Braces Itself for Contentious Fight
Brussels Braces Itself for Contentious Fight

Brussels Braces Itself for Contentious Fight

To further spur local investment in clean technology, von der Leyen has asked for “new and additional funds at the EU level” in addition to promising a reworking of the bloc’s state-aid laws.

This, she said, means “more firepower” for REPowerEU, the EU’s strategy to wean the bloc off of Russian gas. However, in her State of the Union address to the European Parliament in September, von der Leyen also asked for “new and additional funds at the EU level,” specifically mentioning a new European Sovereignty Fund.

She addressed a group in Bruges, “A united European industrial policy requires common European funding.” Our European industrial policy is to make European companies the global models for the clean energy transition. This implies increasing EU funding for early-stage research and development, as well as strategic initiatives, over the course of the next few years.

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The need for further EU money brings to mind discussions that preceded the creation of the COVID recovery fund, which was founded in the end through a combination of private donations and public/private loans. If that discussion was any indication, the future negotiations will be heated.

The subject may be on the table for next week’s EU leaders summit in Brussels, despite the insistence of Commission officials that no specific proposal is coming and that negotiations are only beginning with member countries.

Germany is only one of many EU member states that are adamantly opposed to the creation of new EU funds. Rather, they prefer to use funds from preexisting programmes like NextGeneration EU and RenewEU. There are several cities like Berlin.

One EU official from a financially responsible member country observed, “There is still unused money in the pot — not to mention loans that have not been touched.” Bringing up the topic of increased EU funding is the last thing the EU wants to do.

We need to be clear which industries will truly be hurt by the IRA and to what extent,” a foreign official told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook.

We may then determine which areas require additional resources based on this information; however, as the speaker went on to say, “Why to begin a very difficult discussion about new monies now if we can look at how to better utilise what is already available?”

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