Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2675 actions· ✨ 91 recent

On 15 October 2025 the German Federal Cabinet adopted the Microelectronics Strategy of the Federal Government, jointly presented by the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE). The strategy is the first comprehensive cabinet-adopted German microelectronics policy framework in over a decade and operationalises Germany's contribution to the European Chips Act envelope. It is organised around three pillars — Research, Skilled Labour and Production — and creates a "Chips Office" to coordinate stakeholder interaction and implementation. It establishes a competence centre for chip design and a flagship "supercomputer in the car" project, and is framed as a key implementation instrument under the High-Tech Agenda Germany (HTAD) and as Germany's contribution to the September 29 2025 Semicon Declaration signed by all 27 EU member states calling for a revised EU Chips Act II.

On 18 September 2025 the Bundestag adopted the Gesetz zur Errichtung eines Sondervermögens "Infrastruktur und Klimaneutralität" (SVIKG), authorising up to EUR 500 bn of additional federal borrowing over a twelve-year horizon outside the constitutional debt brake, on the basis of the new Article 143h Grundgesetz inserted by the March 2025 constitutional amendment. The envelope splits into up to EUR 100 bn for Länder and municipal infrastructure (channelled via the companion Länder- und Kommunal-Infrastrukturfinanzierungsgesetz, LuKIFG, passed 9 October 2025), EUR 100 bn transferred to the Klima- und Trans- formationsfonds (KTF) in annual instalments through 2034, and up to EUR 300 bn for additional federal investments in transport, energy/ heat, hospital, education, digitalisation, civil protection and R&D infrastructure. Investments are eligible retroactively from 1 January 2025 and may be approved through 31 December 2036; loan repayment begins no later than 1 January 2044. SVIKG is the largest single industrial-finance instrument launched by an EU member state in the post-2022 industrial-policy cycle.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a EUR 400 million loan agreement with Fresenius on 8 September 2025 in Bad Homburg, Germany, to finance research, development and innovation activities and capacity expansion for Fresenius Kabi's manufacturing of biosimilars, generic drugs, infusion therapies, clinical nutrition products, and associated medical devices across EU member states. The financing is explicitly framed by both parties as strengthening the resilience of European pharmaceutical production and security of supply for EU healthcare systems.

The Bavarian Transformation and Research Foundation (Bayerische Transformations- und Forschungsstiftung) launched "Zukunftstechnologien für die bayerische Wirtschaft," a technology-open R&D grant programme funding application-oriented research and development for later commercial exploitation. The scheme covers up to 50% of eligible costs for industrial research and up to 25% for experimental development, with an additional 10-percentage-point science-cooperation bonus and a 10% SME bonus. Funded projects require mandatory science-industry cooperation across six priority fields: digitalisation, energy and environment, mobility, life sciences, process and production technology, and materials/substances. The programme runs from 1 June 2025 through 30 June 2027.

Bavaria's Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft, Landesentwicklung und Energie (StMWi) published the funding guideline for the Bayerischer Transformationsfonds on 21 May 2025, a EUR 350 million grant scheme administered by the Bayerische Transformations- und Forschungsstiftung (Bavarian Transformation and Research Foundation) to support Bavarian companies facing structural transition. The fund covers investments in research and innovative production technology, process and organisational conversions, and development of new business fields, with large enterprises eligible only for strategically significant projects (minimum EUR 1 million investment). Applications are processed by Projektträger Bayern at Bayern Innovativ; the programme runs through 31 December 2028.

Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy published the "Bundesförderung Industrie und Klimaschutz" (BIK) funding guideline on 23 August 2024 and opened the first funding call on 30 August 2024, making roughly EUR 3.3 billion available through 2030 — financed from the Klima- und Transformationsfonds (KTF) — to decarbonise industrial SMEs and large manufacturers. Module 1 funds decarbonisation investment and R&D projects up to EUR 200 million per project; Module 2 funds carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCU/CCS) investment (up to EUR 30 million) and research (up to EUR 35 million) projects. A second funding call opened in January 2026, and individual awards under the programme — including a EUR 140 million grant to Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann GmbH for its EAF2HKM electric-arc-furnace steel-decarbonisation project — have since been logged as state aid by Global Trade Alert.

The German Federal Cabinet adopted a 49-measure cross-sectoral supply-side reform package on 17 July 2024 alongside the draft 2025 Federal Budget, aimed at reversing Germany's decade-long slide in global competitiveness rankings (from 6th to 24th since 2014). The package covers tax and social-security exemptions for overtime and weekend work, foreign skilled-worker incentives (Aktivrente / extended short-time-work rules), bureaucracy reduction targeting ~€944m/yr in compliance-cost savings, flexible working-time arrangements, energy-price relief for industry (Strompreispaket), accelerated infrastructure and planning-procedure reforms, expanded investment deductions and degressive depreciation for movable assets, and a raised R&D-allowance ceiling. The initiative is the supply-side / regulatory-reform complement to the simultaneously adopted SVIKG €500bn special infrastructure fund and is structurally analogous to the UK Mansion House Reforms and France's France 2030 productivity-enhancement pillar.