EU responds to America's plan: The race for subsidies begins

"The EU opens the money taps, its member states should keep manufacturers with batteries or other green technologies here with generous aid. So far we have not been stingy.

The EU opens the money taps and enters the subsidy race with the USA. This is exactly what the Green Deal industrial plan presented by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is all about. The plan is intended to counter US President Joe Biden's billion-euro package for green technologies.

Where the USA lured the manufacturers of batteries, heat pumps or hydrogen systems with tax breaks, the EU countries should now counteract them with their own tax breaks.

The EU's state aid law, which once set strict limits on such state aid for good reason, will in fact be suspended until 2025.

And because not everyone in the EU has the financial strength of Germany, the other countries should be able to use their resources from the Corona development fund for this.

The Teslas, Northvolts and other industrial companies will gratefully take the (taxpayer's) money with them. For them, the only question at the moment is "Where do I have to put the spoon when it's raining mush", as an industry representative recently put it. It is not at all clear whether the "Inflation Reduction Act" will lead to a mass exodus of investments at all.

Well, Northvolt has questioned building a battery factory in Schleswig-Holstein. Otherwise, however, the Commission relies on "signals" that it receives from the industry. Nor is it as if the EU has been stingy so far.

The US aid package is to distribute $369 billion by 2032. The EU Corona Recovery Fund alone can allocate 800 billion euros by 2027.

But where there is panic about falling behind in the race for future technologies, a sober look at the numbers only gets in the way. 

So it won't be long before the debate about the next EU debt fund picks up steam.

Von der Leyen is still keeping a low profile about how she intends to finance the sovereignty fund, which is intended to invest billions more in green technologies in the medium term. She should wait for others to pave the way there. The calls are getting louder now."