EU eco-friendly gentle for $3.5 billion pan-European battery job

By Foo Yun Chee

© Reuters/POOL
FILE Photo: Vestager, EU tech commissioner, speaks at information meeting in Brussels

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU competitiveness regulators on Tuesday authorised a 2.9-billion-euro ($3.5 billion) battery project funded by Germany, France, Italy and nine other EU countries, responding to the increasing desire for car and industrial batteries in the 27-region bloc.

Customers of the scheme identified as European Battery Innovation involve Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden, the European Fee stated.

The countries hope to attract 9 billion euros from personal traders.

The bloc launched the European Battery Alliance in 2017 in a bid to acquire an field that should prosper in a very low-carbon upcoming and assure the continent is not reliant on imported products – or technologies.

“For those people large innovation challenges for the European economic system, the dangers can be way too huge for just one member point out or one particular company to take by itself,” European Level of competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager claimed in a statement.

“So, it will make excellent sense for European governments to come collectively to assistance sector in establishing more impressive and sustainable batteries.”

The project will cover the total battery benefit chain from extraction of raw products, layout and manufacturing of battery cells and packs to recycling and disposal.

($1 = .8236 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee. Enhancing by Mark Potter)