Date/Time
Date(s) - 07/07/2023
10:00 - 12:00
Location
Press Club Brussels Europe
Categories
INVITATION: PRESS BRIEFING
Sovereignty Fund – A STEP in the wrong direction?
Friday 7 July 2023 at 10:00 to 12:00 (CET)
Press Club Brussels Europe
Rue Froissart 95 – 1040 Brussels
We warmly welcome you to a press briefing discussing the Strategies Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), as recently announced by the European Commission. It will feature a panel of experts from civil society, along with cleantech innovators and investors. The event is hybrid, with a light breakfast offered at the venue, but can also be followed live at this link.
Background
The EU is a cleantech innovation powerhouse, and has developed most of the technologies needed to meet 2030 targets. However, we struggle to scale, industrialise and deploy these technologies in Europe. This requires ambitious policy and funding, especially as major economies such as the US, Canada, Japan, China are increasingly competing to lead the cleantech revolution.
In 2023, the EU has launched several initiatives aiming at improving the EU’s cleantech competitiveness, such as the Net Zero Industry Act, which proposes that by 2030, Europe develops the capacity to manufacture 40% of its needed strategic net-zero technologies domestically.
The recently announced Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) has been touted as the financial leg of this effort. But its additional funding of €10 billion is less than the amount that was recently offered by the German government to support the building of a single chip factory in the country. The Platform does not change existing application processes, which have made schemes like the Innovation Fund hard to access for cleantech companies. Additionally, STEP is not only focused on cleantech, but also covers deeptech and biotech.
This briefing will cover:
- What is in the STEP proposal and how the Platform would work
- How STEP compares to funding available for cleantech in the US and other regions
- Feedback from cleantech innovators and investors on whether STEP improves the European funding environment for cleantech
Speakers
The briefing will contain presentations by the following experts:
- Suzana Carp – Deputy Executive Director, Cleantech for Europe
- Eulalia Rubio – Senior Research Fellow on European Economic Affairs, Jacques Delors Institute
- Ciaran Humphreys – Project manager, Institute for Climate Economics
- Arnaud Castaignet – Vice President Public Affairs, Skeleton Technologies
- Craig Douglas – Partner, World Fund
Agenda
- 9:30 – 10:00 Light Breakfast
- 10:00 – 11:15 Live-streamed Press Briefing with Q/A
- 15 – 11:30 Coffee
Registration : joel.boehme@cleantech.com