The EU is about to enter a new political cycle. Right now, the slate of designated Commissioners are preparing for their hearings in the European Parliament. Once confirmed, they will need to hit the ground running.
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has promised to unveil a Clean Industrial Deal within the first 100 days of this new mandate. This would set the stage for a political cycle focused on cleantech competitiveness, but time is of the essence. On September 26, policy and cleantech leaders joined the annual Cleantech for Europe Summit in Brussels and shared a similar goals.
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According to our research, the EU cleantech sector faces a massive investment gap of hundreds of billions of Euros to reach commercial scale in Europe. To unleash this type of capital flow, requires a paradigm shift in favour of much bolder public support for investments into innovative clean technologies.
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This quarter also saw one of Europe's most high profile and well-capitalized cleantech scaleups face difficulties. Northvolt’s canceled orders and layoffs highlight how challenging the path to scaling European cleantech is - from delivering major industrial projects from scratch to securing demand, funding, critical materials and machinery. Beyond the individual case of Northvolt, this raises a cultural question for Europe and our policymakers: in our quest to become a leader in the industries of tomorrow, are we ready to take the risk that some projects will fail?

This news comes as Europe is coming to terms with significant industrial challenges. Mario Draghi’s recent report drew an accurate diagnosis of European competitiveness and issued a wake-up call to avoid a slow economic agony. The paper focused on the need to scale up clean technologies to underpin our competitiveness in the coming decades, and called for an industrial, trade, competition and financial strategy that can support this goal. Draghi proposed several measures the cleantech community strongly supports, such as mobilising private capital to fund this scale-up with de-risking support from public funders.
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The EU has months, not years, to turn the boat around. To succeed at developing and implementing a successful clean industrial strategy, it will need to break some old habits. Strategy requires focus, and the Christmas Tree approach to legislation, where every interest adds their item, should be avoided at all costs. Our trade policy needs an overhaul, now that China and the US are in effect implementing local content requirements. And our financial policy should adapt to funnel the large sums we need to invest in our future.

It's time for Europe to walk the competitiveness talk.