The EU Competitiveness, Internal Market and Industry Council is finalizing an agreement on the new zero-emission industry regulation that will serve as a tool for reindustrialization and the recovery of strategic autonomy in the region.
The Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, who chairs the Council meeting, which is being held today in Brussels, has expressed his confidence that the agreement can be reached during the day. It will be, as he says, “a magnificent instrument of industrial strengthening.”
The regulation, which would remain pending the trialogue with Parliament and the Commission for its final approval, will go ahead after France has incorporated the possibility that energy auctions for the industry consider elements other than price.
Before the meeting, Hereu also indicated that “the text contemplates” the possibility of the nuclear industry entering into this regulation, which encourages zero-emission technologies. “We have to close the debate and look for points of agreement to achieve general approval by the States,” he said.
The norm aims to recover the industrial autonomy of the EU by promoting zero-emission technologies. “We must achieve an industry with net zero emissions technologies that helps us reindustrialize and increase the weight of the industrial sector in the GDP of the European Union,” stated the minister.
The meeting did not discuss the weight of the European zero-emissions industry, although the European Parliament is working on a law so that it approaches or reaches at least 40% of annual needs in 2030.
Hereu also explained that one of the objectives of the meeting is also to ensure that SMEs can benefit from the net zero emissions regulation.
For the Minister of Industry, the future regulation is “a fundamental legislative framework to reinforce the strategic autonomy” of Europe and green reindustrialization, “main priorities of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU”, which ends on December 31.
