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The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, visiting Washington, spoke with US President Joe Biden about the law that seeks to reduce inflation in the United States with, among other things, subsidies for products made in this country. country. This law has been widely criticized by Europe, since it affects the minerals that are used to manufacture electric vehicles and that are extracted in the countries of the bloc.
In a bilateral meeting between the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, both addressed the existing friction over tax credits for electric vehicles. The two sides said they would start talks on critical minerals used in the manufacture of these vehicles.
In the conversation at the White House there were a number of complaints from the European Union, as Von der Leyen points out that the clean energy subsidies in the United States Inflation Reduction Act, IRA, would divert investment from Europe And it would hurt your economy.
Biden and von der Leyen met at the White House against a backdrop of European complaints that clean energy subsidies in the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and others they will divert investment from Europe and hurt their economies. The war in Ukraine was also high on the agenda.
The IRA is a $430 billion bill proposed by President Biden that offers massive subsidies for products made in the United States. It is meant to tackle the climate crisis and promote renewable energy, but it has not been viewed favorably by Europe, which says allies must stand together and form a common front against bigger threats from China.
Biden has tried to find solutions to European concerns, but he has stuck to the basic principles of this law, which represented a great political victory for him after its approval in Congress.
In fact, he ordered the Department of Defense to consider at least five metals — lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and manganese — essential to national security, and authorized measures to bolster domestic supplies.
The announced negotiations on critical minerals seek to guarantee that these, when extracted or processed in the European Union, are taken into account in the tax credits for clean vehicles under the IRA law.
In the joint statement they said that “this type of agreement would further” the “shared goals of boosting” the “production and processing of minerals and expanding access to critical mineral sources that are sustainable, reliable and free from labor abuses.”
Furthermore, they added: “Cooperation is also necessary to reduce unwanted strategic dependencies in these supply chains and to ensure that they diversify and develop with trusted partners.”
The European Commission presented the Industrial Green Deal Plan in February, as a response to the IRA law in the United States, with which it intends to give more state aid to Europe to compete as a center for the manufacture of clean technology products.
The Treasury Department said in a statement that an agreement “with like-minded partners” could help provide a measure of “security and stability by ensuring that the United States and its allies and partners are not dependent on China for critical minerals.”
One voice in support of Ukraine
At the meeting, Biden and Von der Leyen talked about mutual support in strengthening cooperation with Ukraine.
“It’s good to come back here because we are not only partners, the European Union and the United States are good friends. This shows in all the work we are doing together,” said Von der Leyen, adding: “You helped us enormously when we wanted to get rid of from Russia’s dependence on fossil fuels, they helped us tremendously by supplying more liquefied natural gas, they helped us through the energy crisis.”
For his part, President Joe Biden said that his country supports “Europe’s energy security”, and that at the same time they are “promoting new investments to create clean energy industries and jobs” to ensure “of having supply chains available for both (…) continents”.
Biden claimed that the idea of boosting investment and securing supply chains underpinned both measures.
During a December visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House, Biden said bills aimed at boosting renewable energy and the US semiconductor industry have “flaws” that can be addressed.
The deputy director of the European Center in the Atlantic Council, James Batchik, said that the United States and the European Union are “on the same page” so it is an important step “to avoid a war of subsidies.”
With Reuters, AP and EFE
