The European Commission’s powerful competition directorate is blocking a push that would allow governments to subsidise the production costs of clean energy technologies, flaring tensions between EU officials enforcing state-aid rules and those working on industry.
Teresa Ribera, the EU’s competition commissioner, is refusing to exempt the operating costs of solar panel, wind turbine and battery producers from the bloc’s notoriously strict state-aid regime, said four people with knowledge of the talks.
The internal battle highlights the EU’s executive’s struggle to navigate the challenge of supporting Europe’s emerging technologies in a global race with China and the US, while also holding firm to its traditional free market approach to subsidies.