On 26 February, the European Commission published its long-awaited Clean Industrial Deal which will set the course for the European Union’s growth strategy over the next five years.

The new plan clearly underscores that decarbonisation and long-term economic growth go hand-in-hand. Europe’s clean tech sector is positioned front and centre of the EU’s industrial strategy. Scaling clean tech solutions will be a major priority for transforming energy-intensive industries and maintaining the Europe’s competitiveness.

“The EU’s new Clean Industrial Deal published today is a welcome boost to the clean tech sector and confirmation that clean tech is at the heart of Europe’s economic strategy. The commitment to ambitious European 2040 climate target provides much-needed certainty for long-term investments in the clean tech sector.

Specific measures to level the playing field for the European clean tech sector are an equally important addition to Europe’s industrial policy. The inclusion of sustainability and local content requirements in public procurement and private purchasing give Europe’s transitioning industries a fairer chance to compete in the Single Market and reinforces the demand signal to buy European-made products.

The proposed expansion of the InvestEU financing programme – both in scale and risk capacity – is a welcome step to boost support for clean industrial scale-ups developing first-of-a-kind plants.

However, this must be complemented by further mobilisation of private capital to meet the volumes required to scale clean tech. Time is of the essence to develop new financing instruments. The EU cannot afford to wait for the next long-term budget cycle to finance these new initiatives. Final-investment-decisions (FID) by clean tech manufacturing ventures must be taken urgently in order to have an impact on 2030 climate targets.”