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

Romania's Government adopted Emergency Ordinance nr. 8/2026 on 24 February 2026, published in the Official Gazette (Monitorul Oficial) nr. 147 of 25 February 2026 and entering into force 1 March 2026, committing a EUR 5 billion (~RON 25 bn) horizontal economic-recovery and productive-investment envelope through 2032 structured around nine state-aid schemes, a 200% corporate R&D expense deduction (High-Tech Research Schema), a RON 1 bn Investment and Development Bank (BID) recapitalization, and a RON 1 bn EximBank export-credit allocation. The ordinance frames Romania's pivot "from consumption to investments as the engine of economic growth" and establishes a Strategic Investment tier (minimum RON 1 bn project value) qualifying for the highest-intensity state-aid eligibility, while introducing a 3% tax-compliance bonus and asset-expensing threshold raised to RON 5,000.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 75 million loan with AMAG Austria Metall AG on 19 December 2025 (publicly announced 23 February 2026), financing research, development, digitalisation and environmental-sustainability upgrades at AMAG's aluminium plant in Ranshofen, Upper Austria. The credit is the first EIB operation in Austria under its new TechEU programme (accelerating industrial innovation in Europe) and benefits from InvestEU programme backing. It contributes to a wider AMAG investment programme with total projected costs of EUR 168 million over 2025-2028, and the EIB explicitly frames the financing as advancing the EU objective of a sustainable, diversified and stable supply of critical raw materials, including aluminium.

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.

On 15 September 2025, Brazil's national development bank BNDES and research-financing agency Finep announced the results of a public call (Chamada Pública) to attract, implant or expand corporate research, technological-development and innovation (PD&I) centres in Brazil. The call, launched in February 2025 with an initial R$3 billion budget, drew 618 proposals worth R$57.4 billion in prospective investment — more than 19x the original allocation. BNDES and Finep selected 88 proposals and expanded the committed budget to R$8.9 billion (of a total R$10 billion in associated project investment), delivered through a mix of credit, equity participation, non-reimbursable cooperative-research grants and economic subsidies. 27 of the selected proposals target the North, Northeast and Center-West regions (R$4bn in investment); a further 27 are exclusively new-centre implantations (R$3.4bn). The selected projects project hiring of 935 qualified researchers (572 master's, 363 doctoral). The call operates under Brazil's Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) framework and is explicitly aligned to NIB's six industrial-policy missions.

On 25 August 2025, Brazil's federal government launched a combined BRL 12 billion (~USD 2.2bn) subsidised credit line to fund the diffusion of Industry 4.0 machinery and equipment across the Brazilian industrial base. BNDES (national development bank) contributes BRL 10 billion nationwide through its "Crédito Indústria 4.0" line; Finep (research-financing agency) adds BRL 2 billion via its "Difusão Tecnológica" line, reserved for companies in the North, Northeast and Center-West regions to narrow regional investment gaps. Financing covers capital goods incorporating robotics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, sensing, machine-to-machine communication and IoT, at concessional rates of roughly 7.5-8% plus spread; credit approvals began 15 September 2025. The line operates under the Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) national industrial-policy framework.

In the Spending Review 2025 (delivered 11 June 2025), HM Treasury committed "over £2.5 billion" for nuclear fusion, explicitly including support for the UK's STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) programme to design and build a prototype fusion power plant on the site of the former West Burton A coal power station in Nottinghamshire. The commitment covers the multi-year Spending Review period and is administered through the UK Atomic Energy Authority. STEP construction is expected to begin in the 2030s, with first operations targeted for 2040, and the government cites over 10,000 jobs supported by the programme.

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.