The European Commission President announced during the World Economic Forum in Davos in January the Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age. The Commission wants to promote a more supportive environment for deploying the clean tech manufacturing capacity required to meet EU ambitious green targets. The plan adds an industrial component to the European Green Deal, which sets out to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The European Commission wants the EU to develop and manufacture the clean technologies that make this transition possible.

The Green Deal Industrial Plan will be based on four pillars:

  • a predictable and simplified regulatory environment,
  • speeding up access to finance,
  • enhancing skills,
  • open trade for resilient supply chains.

Under the first pillar, predictable and simplified regulatory environment, the Commission announced three key proposals for industrial competitiveness: a Net-Zero Industry Act, a Critical Raw Materials Act, and the reform of the electricity market design.

The Critical Raw Materials Act has been in discussion at Commission level for some time, with an Action Plan on Critical Raw Materials already presented in 2020. The new Act aims at going even further given the changed geopolitical context, ensuring sufficient access to those materials, like rare earths, that are vital for manufacturing key technologies. The Act will include actions to diversify sourcing and by recycling raw materials, but also provide the EU security of supply, including by strengthening international engagement, facilitating extraction (where relevant), processing and recycling, while ensuring high environmental standards and continuing research and innovation, e.g. to reduce material use and to develop bio-based substitutes. The Critical Raw Materials Act will be presented in March 2023.

CEMA will continue to monitor the legislative developments linked to the Green Deal Industrial Plan.

A Commission factsheet for the Green Industrial Plan is available here.