A new political cycle is starting in the EU. In early June, Europeans elected their members of Parliament. This new Parliament in turn re-elected Ursula von der Leyen to the Presidency of the European Commission. This is good news for clean technologies: she presided over the passing of the Green Deal, which set ambitious objectives for the deployment of clean technologies throughout Europe. Her proposal of a Clean Industrial Deal (section 4: Latest EU policy developments) and the announcement of a European Competitiveness Fund shows she is serious about not only deploying clean technologies, but also manufacturing them in Europe.

Achieving Europe’s cleantech ambitions will require an extraordinary effort – from creating strong demand signals to facilitating access to abundant, affordable clean energy for clean industry. It will also require Europe to wake up to the new realities of global trade, and take measures to enact a level playing field between European manufacturers and importers.
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Most of all, it will require a step-change in how we finance clean technologies. Our Cleantech Investment Plan report shows innovators face an investment gap in the hundreds of billions of euros by 2030, while public finances are increasingly limited. We urgently need the public funder to build de-risking measures that can effectively crowd in large pockets of private investment.

Speaking of investment, in Q2 2.4 billion euros in equity were invested across 161 cleantech deals. Debt rounds fell from the historic record observed in Q1, but show early promise of stabilizing at a level higher than previous years.
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This quarter sees the investment gap widen between the EU and the US again, with the US showing strong recovery momentum. Meanwhile, this quarter ended with Europe neck-and-neck with the Asia Pacific region. European investments hold steady, but not at the level that would make us competitive in the global cleantech race. This start of a new political mandate is an opportunity to go faster and farther. Time is against us, and the technological leadership we have painstakingly developed is at risk.
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Against this backdrop, we will host our annual Cleantech for Europe Summit in Brussels on Thursday, September 26. There, we will gather the highest levels of policy and cleantech leaders, to chart a path to European industrial leadership. If you are interested in participating, drop us a note. I hope to see you there.