The Net-Zero Industry Act proposal strongly relies on education and R&I. March saw significant progress in EU-UK relations – and hope for EU-Swiss relations.
On 16 March, the European Commission (EC) proposed the Net-Zero Industry Act as part of the Green Deal Industrial Plan to ramp up its efforts to transition to clean technologies and energy. The EC hopes that the Act would “create better conditions to set up net-zero projects in Europe and attract investments, with the aim that the Union’s overall strategic net-zero technologies manufacturing capacity approaches or reaches at least 40% of the Union’s deployment needs by 2030”. This would help the EU to accelerate its progress towards the 2030 climate and energy targets, like the reduction of CO2 emissions by 55% – and eventually make the transition to climate neutrality by 2050 possible. At the same time, this would improve the EU industry’s competitiveness and create quality jobs. EC President Ursula von der Leyen said that the Net-Zero Industry Act “will create the best conditions for those sectors that are crucial for us to reach net-zero by 2050: technologies like wind turbines, heat pumps, solar panels, renewable hydrogen as well as CO2 storage.”
The Commission underscores that the EU’s competitiveness is at the moment not looking positive when it comes to producing key technologies: “Europe is currently a net importer of net-zero energy technologies, with about one-quarter of electric cars and batteries, and nearly all solar PV modules and fuel cells imported.” Thus, in addition of improving investment certainty, lowering administrative burdens for developing net-zero manufacturing projects, and facilitating access to markets, the efforts under the Net-Zero Act focus on research, innovation and education. While Horizon Europe already dedicates around €40 billion to Green-Deal-related research and innovation, the proposed new regulation aims at supporting related key drivers of net-zero technology via enhancing skills for quality job creation in net-zero technologies, supporting innovation through regulatory sandboxes, and coordinating net-zero industrial partnerships.
A key chapter of the Act aims to create mechanisms to design and deploy necessary skills in a manner that effectively targets the needs of net-zero industries by setting up specialised European skills Academies. The Commission plans to work with Member States, industry, social partners, and education and training providers to design and deploy education and training courses to reskill and upskill workers for net-zero technology industries. A Net-Zero Europe Platform would support the deployment of people with skills needed in net-zero technologies, with a special focus on women and young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs). Thus, the Act foresees to complement EC actions aimed at objectives of the EU Pact for Skills, the EU Skills Agenda, the industrial transition pathways – as well as the 2023 European Year of Skills. Another important chapter of the proposed regulation foresees setting up regulatory sandboxes to test net-zero technologies in a controlled environment for a limited amount of time. The EC plans to create Net-Zero Industrial Partnerships covering net-zero technologies to adopt them globally, especially in cooperation with like-minded countries to support a global clean energy transition: “Similarly, stronger research and innovation efforts to develop and deploy net-zero technologies should be pursued in close cooperation with partner countries in an open but assertive approach”.
March also saw significant progress for the EU in creating stronger relations with one of the likeminded countries in Europe: the United Kingdom. After the Windsor Framework was reached in late February that included a solution to avoiding a customs border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, prospects for the UK’s swift association to Horizon Europe significantly improved – a fact that was also mentioned by President von der Leyen during her visit to the UK in late February (see Science Business article). On 21 March, the Council of the EU adopted two first decisions containing main elements of the Windsor Framework. On 22 March, the UK’s House of Commons voted 515 : 29 in favour of the Windsor Framework. The European Commission and the UK formally adopted the Windsor Framework on 24 March. Next steps towards full participation in Horizon Europe will now have to focus on clarifying modalities for the UK’s association after not being part of the R&I framework programme during its first two years (see Science Business article).
Moreover, March was an important month in Swiss-EU relations as well. On 15 and 16 March 2023, EC Vice President Maroš Šefcovic visited Switzerland and met with the Swiss Federal Councillor responsible for foreign affairs, Ignazio Cassis, with Members of the Swiss Parliament, and with the social partners. During the following press conference, he observed that “both sides have moved towards each other” and that there is the will on both sides to further narrow the remaining gap through exploratory talks at the technical and political levels. He expressed his confidence that with the necessary political will, it will be possible to start formal negotiations soon and reach an agreement on the package of topics currently discussed. The Swiss government decided on 29 March to draft key parameters of a negotiation mandate until the end of June 2023. The mandate would be the basis for negotiations with the European Union on a package of agreements that also includes new topics, such as electricity, food safety, and health – as well as longstanding ones, such as association to Horizon Europe and Erasmus+. In parallel to the preparation of key parameters of a negotiation mandate, the Swiss government hopes to clarify the common basis for future negotiations with the EU during ongoing talks. The next round of exploratory talks will take place on 20 April in Brussels. At the same time, technical talks with the EU continue on a weekly basis.