Brussels advances €100 billion to boost EU industrial base

The European Commission will make €100 billion available to boost the competitiveness of European Union (EU) industry, based on decarbonisation and green production.

According to the document presented this Wednesday, which included around 40 measures to boost EU industry, the Clean Industrial Pact will "mobilize more than 100 billion euros to support green manufacturing" in the short term.

At the same time, the EU executive will prepare a state support strategy that includes an additional one billion euros under the current Multiannual Financial Framework.

The European Commission proposes a Decarbonisation Industrial Bank, with €100 billion in financing.

In this effort that Brussels wants to result in the stimulation of an industrial base that faces "high energy costs, and fierce and almost always unfair global competition", this "urgent support" also foresees the inclusion of the European Investment Bank (EIB), with guarantees and support for risk minimization, a "pilot program" between the European Commission and the EIB for counter-guarantees for industries that require a lot of energy use and small and medium-sized companies.

To facilitate this incentive, Ursula von der Leyen's executive also wants to create "a mechanism" to allow companies in the European Union to jointly purchase critical materials and create legislation by 2025 that allows their circulation between Member States in a more efficient way.

The goal is to have 24% of critical materials circulating by 2030.

The strategy announced today is part of an effort announced by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to strengthen the EU's industrial base in terms of its competitiveness during the five-year term ahead of the executive, without forgetting the decarbonisation and ecological transition objectives to which the EU has committed.