Letter to European Commission Warns Against Over - Subsidizing Large, Dominant Corporations at the Expense of SMEs in Clean Energy Transition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, March 13, 2023
CONTACT: Max von Thun, vonthun@openmarketsinstitute.org
BRUSSELS - On Monday, March 13, 2023, the Open Markets Institute, the Balanced Economy Project, and the European Digital SME Alliance sent an open letter to the European Commission to urge that the EU’s response to U.S. investments in a clean energy transition through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), not come at the expense of fair, diverse, resilient and competitive markets. In practice this means ensuring that investment via government subsidies in giant corporations does not deprive small- and medium-sized innovators of the crucial funding they need to grow. The letter sets out a number of recommendations for achieving this, including transparency and requirements linked to the EU’s social and economic objectives.
The letter reads: “While many others, including national governments themselves, have rightly warned that a more permissive state aid framework risks disproportionately benefiting larger member states with greater fiscal firepower, we should be just as worried about the prospect of large and dominant companies capturing the majority of the funding, elbowing SMEs aside.”
“We urgently need public investment to combat climate change and strengthen our fragile supply chains. But subsidies for green tech must not lead to a harmful subsidy race between the EU and US, which powerful multinational corporations will be best placed to game – at a high cost to SMEs and taxpayers” said Open Markets Institute Director for Europe and Transatlantic Partnerships Max von Thun.
Read full letter here.
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