Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

The European Commission approved a €3 billion German state aid scheme (SA.121215) under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), authorising federal support for strategic investments in cleantech manufacturing capacity across Germany through 31 December 2030. Aid is delivered via grants, tax advantages, and interest subsidies or guarantees for new loans, and is open to companies across the entire German territory. Eligible activities cover the production of net-zero technologies listed in Annex II of the CISAF — including batteries, solar PV, wind turbines, electrolysers, heat pumps, and CCUS equipment — as well as the production of new or recovered critical raw materials necessary for those final products and main specific components. This is the first €3-billion-tier individual CISAF approval in the register and establishes Germany as the principal Member State implementer of the Clean Industrial Deal's manufacturing-capacity investment pillar.

The European Commission approved on 28 January 2026, under EU State aid rules (Article 107(3)(c) TFEU and the 2022 Guidelines on State aid for climate, environmental protection and energy), a EUR 3.1 billion Spanish scheme to support electricity production from new or substantially refurbished high-efficiency combined heat and power (CHP) plants. The scheme runs for ten years (28 January 2026 to 27 January 2036) and pays a two-component reward premium — investment compensation set through competitive auctions plus quarterly-updated operational compensation tied to electricity, fuel and CO2 prices — to CHP operators using natural gas (with a minimum 10% renewable-hydrogen-ready capability), bioliquids, biogas, or solid biomass. The Commission found the scheme's positive effects on Spain's energy-efficiency and decarbonisation targets outweigh potential competition distortions.

The European Commission approved a €4.1 billion Hungarian state aid scheme (SA.120705) under Section 6.1 of the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), authorising grants and tax advantages for strategic investments that add cleantech-manufacturing capacity across Hungary through 31 December 2030. Eligible activities cover net-zero technologies listed in Annex II of the CISAF — batteries, solar PV, wind turbines, electrolysers, heat pumps, and CCUS equipment — plus their main specific components and the production or recovery of related critical raw materials. The scheme is open to companies across the whole territory of Hungary and is the CISAF-era successor to Hungary's EUR 2.36 billion TCTF net-zero scheme (approved 2023-08-30, aid deadline 31 December 2025), which channelled the bulk of Chinese and Korean battery/EV-supply-chain FDI into the Debrecen–Szeged–Göd–Nyíregyháza industrial cluster.

On 16 December 2025 the European Commission adopted the Communication on a Battery Booster Strategy (later published in the Official Journal as C/2026/682), part of the EU Automotive Package presented alongside the CO2 emission-standards review, the Automotive Omnibus simplification, and the Corporate Vehicle Decarbonisation initiative. The Battery Booster envelopes EUR 1.8bn of EU-budget support for the European battery value chain: EUR 1.5bn from the Innovation Fund as interest-free loans for European battery cell producers ramping to giga-scale output (delivered through a dedicated Battery Booster Facility, with the implementing Commission Decision in stakeholder consultation through 15 March 2026), plus EUR 300m for critical raw materials projects in Europe. The strategy is the first standalone EU industrial-finance instrument targeted exclusively at battery cell manufacturing, and is paired with RESourceEU (3 Dec 2025) and the Industrial Accelerator Act proposal (4 Mar 2026) to stitch together upstream CRM, midstream cell production and downstream automotive demand.

The European Commission approved on 6 November 2025 a EUR 700 million Spanish State aid scheme (SA.119884) under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF Section 6.1), to support the build-out of new manufacturing capacity for net-zero technologies listed in CISAF Annex II. The scheme funds direct grants, open Spain-wide and available until 31 December 2028, for investments producing batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, electrolysers, carbon capture/storage/utilisation equipment, and the critical raw materials used to make these components. It is a distinct, larger sister scheme to Spain's EUR 408 million SA.119880 CISAF Section 5 scheme (approved five weeks later), which instead funds decarbonisation of existing industrial processes rather than new clean-tech production capacity.

The European Commission on 20 May 2025 published the results of the second EU Hydrogen Bank auction (IF24), selecting 15 renewable hydrogen production projects across five European Economic Area countries to share approximately €992 million in Innovation Fund grants. Winning projects span transport, chemicals, methanol, and ammonia end-uses; three projects were selected under a dedicated maritime-fuels lot. Spain, Lithuania, and Austria committed over €700 million in additional national co-funding via the Auctions-as-a-Service mechanism, bringing total public support above €1.69 billion and marking the first large-scale EEA co-funded hydrogen auction.

Regulation (EU) 2024/1735 - the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) - was published in the Official Journal on 22 June 2024 and entered into force on 12 July 2024 (twenty days after OJ publication). It sets a binding target that at least 40% of the EU's annual deployment needs for net-zero technologies be manufactured within the EU by 2030. It establishes a streamlined permitting regime for Net-Zero Strategic Projects (NZSP) capped at 18 months for construction permits (9 months for smaller projects), creates Net-Zero Regulatory Sandboxes, and requires public procurers and auction designers to include resilience and sustainability criteria that effectively favour non-China-sourced equipment. The Act is the manufacturing-capacity complement to the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA, Reg 2024/1252, filed separately) and was explicitly designed to close the EU's competitive gap with US IRA manufacturing incentives.

The Diet enacted on 31 May 2024 (promulgated 7 June 2024 as Law No. 45 of 2024) the "Act on Partially Amending the Act on Strengthening Industrial Competitiveness and Other Acts to Create New Business and Encourage Investment in Industries". The provisions establishing Japan's first US IRA-style production-and-sales-linked tax credit took effect 2 September 2024 per METI's press release of the same date. Eligible enterprises with a METI-certified business plan can claim tax deductions tied to domestic production-and-sales volume of five designated strategic products: electric vehicles, green steel, green chemicals, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and semiconductors. The credit is available for ten years from certification (certifications must be issued by 31 March 2027), with an annual cap of 40% of corporate tax liability (20% for semiconductors) and a 4-year carry-forward. Eligibility is conditional on meeting wage-growth or capital-investment thresholds in each fiscal year.

The Inflation Reduction Act (Public Law 117-169), signed by President Biden on 16 August 2022, contains the largest single package of clean-energy and clean-manufacturing subsidies in US history — Congressional Budget Office scored the energy and climate provisions at $369B over 10 years, with subsequent Treasury / academic estimates reaching $800B-$1.2T as uptake exceeded baseline. Core mechanisms include the Section 30D Clean Vehicle credit ($7,500 per qualifying EV), the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit (per-unit credits for domestically-produced battery cells, modules, electrodes, and critical-mineral processing), the Section 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit, and the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Credit. Critically, the law contains Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) provisions barring credit eligibility for vehicles or components linked to entities controlled by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.