Von der Leyen wants to respond to US subsidies with EU investments

Bruges, Washington According to Ursula von der Leyen, the dispute over the massive US subsidy program for green technologies requires an industrial policy offensive by the Europeans. On Sunday, the head of the EU Commission advocated relaxing European state aid law in order to enable more government investment in the energy transition – and also to issue new community bonds for this purpose.

On the other hand, von der Leyen does not think much of the demand made in the EU Parliament to respond to the protectionist climate policy of the USA with a lawsuit before the World Trade Organization (WTO). Also because she does not want to endanger transatlantic cooperation in the Ukraine war.

The EU will respond to the US billions in subsidies “in an appropriate and well-calibrated manner,” she said. “But does this mean that in the midst of an actual war we will engage in a costly trade war with the United States? That is not in our interest,” the CDU politician clarified in a speech at the College of Europe in Bruges.