The EU Commission takes the position that companies to which the state grants aid must partly use it to invest in climate protection measures.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The EU Commission wants to make state aid in the energy and climate sector dependent on a large part of the aid being used by companies for investments. This emerges from the latest draft of the EU Commission for the revision of the climate, environmental and energy subsidy guidelines (KUEBL).
The companies concerned view this critically. They see the future federal government as having an obligation. In fact, the future traffic light coalitionists have taken the issue into account with their own passage in the coalition agreement. With the KUEBL amendment “we will ensure that the competitiveness of the company is maintained”, it says in it.
The new guidelines should come into force at the turn of the year. So time is of the essence. A first draft of the guidelines was published months ago. A new draft from the Commission is now circulating. In essence, the revision of the guidelines is about how much the aid may be, which sectors will benefit – and whether the companies may freely dispose of the aid.
The EU Commission takes the position that companies to which the state grants aid must partly use it to invest in climate protection measures.
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“The obligation to reinvest a large part of the subsidies completely bypasses business reality. We need the subsidies in order to be able to compete. We use them to offset costs that competitors in other regions of the world do not have, ”said Jörg Rothermel from the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI). The obligation to invest subsidies goes against the protective nature of the scheme, he said.
“Load limits are indispensable”
The German Steel Federation warns that load limits are indispensable in order to maintain international competitiveness and thus the basis for the transformation to climate-neutral production. “There must be no cuts in the aid framework here,” said Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff, President of the Steel Federation.
The guidelines are used, for example, in the special equalization regulation of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) or in the limitation of the surcharge under the Combined Heat and Power Act (KWKG). Companies with a high energy intensity receive relief here, which the EU Commission classifies as state aid. The legal regulations on which the relief is based are repeatedly and critically scrutinized by the Commission. The guidelines serve the EU states as a guide for legislation.
In the first KUEBL draft, the Commission had planned to lower the level of aid from 85 to 75 percent. She has moved away from this in the new draft. For particularly energy-intensive companies, 85 percent should still be possible. The commission is moving in the right direction, said Rothermel.
The industry regards the fact that industrial gases should now be among the sectors eligible for aid as a step forward. “That was not the case in the original version. If this plan had become a reality, it would have massively hindered the politically desired entry into the hydrogen economy or even made it impossible, ”said VCI expert Rothermel.
In its draft, the Commission has not yet taken into account the question of how contracts for differences for industry should be designed in accordance with state aid law. Rothermel said they wanted “more orientation” on this issue.
Contracts for differences are concluded between the public sector and companies. They regulate the financial compensation of the additional costs that arise when converting to climate neutrality. “Now the future federal government will have to develop a concept without knowing what the Commission’s ideas are. It’s like jumping into cold water, ”said Rothermel.
More: What the traffic light has agreed on and how it will finance it