Habeck’s answer – With this agenda, the economy minister wants to react to Biden’s subsidies

Berlin Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) wants to react to US President Joe Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA), which is worth billions, with his “own European industrial policy agenda”. Specifically, Habeck proposes a “European program for the promotion of transformation technologies”. According to information from the Handelsblatt, this emerges from an internal, five-page paper from the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

In it, Habeck outlines concrete funding proposals for Europe’s possible response for the first time. According to several government representatives, the new EU program is to be “creatively combined from existing pots”. But that alone will not be enough.

Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) therefore proposed a solidarity fund financed with EU community debt on Sunday. However, the Ministry of Economics is skeptical about this, according to government circles. According to Habeck’s paper, the additional funds “must be raised primarily nationally”. The authors of the paper are cautious about funding at EU level.