Brussels, 25 April 2025
EREF welcomes the Commission’s proposal for a new Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework as an important step towards strengthening the competitiveness of European industries and accelerating the transformation to a climate-neutral, renewables-based energy system. Its long-term and enabling orientation beyond the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework is welcome, and we support the ambition to streamline procedures and mobilise investment in strategic sectors. At the same time, effective and well-designed implementation will be crucial to ensure that the framework delivers in practice. We underline that a timely Commission approval of national aid schemes is essential to provide planning security and avoid delays that could undermine investment.
Additionally, we are concerned that the reordering of categories and the introduction of new provisions may lead to legal uncertainties if key elements remain ambiguous. Definitions and eligibility criteria must be clear, legally robust, and grounded in existing legislation to ensure consistency and predictability for all actors.
Based on EREF’s full submission, we highlight the following key priorities:
- Support must focus on fully renewable technologies. Fossil gas, nuclear, and “low-carbon” options should be excluded to avoid lock-in effects and misallocation of public funds.
- Aid thresholds and eligibility criteria must reflect real-world deployment conditions, including repowering costs, small-scale exemptions, negative price rules and self-consumption models.
- Definitions must align with EU law and reinforce the shift to renewables. Terms such as “non-fossil flexibility” must be clearly defined and limited to renewable-based solutions.
- Hydrogen aid must be reserved for renewable hydrogen. Point 82 should exclude “low-carbon” blends; point 101 (gas conversion) should be deleted to avoid prolonging fossil use.
- Point 6.2 on foreign subsidy matching must be simplified to reduce administrative burden, especially for SMEs and early-stage clean-tech manufacturers.
- De-risking and infrastructure support must prioritise decentralised renewables and be accessible to SMEs, citizen-led initiatives, and energy communities.
- Support for CCS/CCU manufacturing must be strictly limited. Aid should prioritise renewable energy and energy efficiency first, and apply only where climate benefits are verifiable, durable, and where no extension of fossil-based production infrastructure occurs.
- Nuclear energy must remain excluded from this framework. Any potential future aid must follow a separate legal process under EURATOM and be subject to full scrutiny.
- Municipally owned companies that meet SME criteria otherwise should be eligible for higher aid intensity, regardless of ownership structure.
Generally, EREF welcomes the clarity in the guidelines draft, underlining that mechanisms which are based on general economic policies and thus not selective are not state aid and do not need notification and approval under state aid rules.
In view of the overall urgency already outlined under TCTF and enshrined in the Principle of Renewables being of overriding public interest as already defined under the SOS Regulation and in RED III, EREF welcomes the acceleration and simplification of compatibility rules.
An important aid intensity increase factor is placed on leverage for small for small and medium sized enterprises, which obviously is welcomed by EREF as the voice of independent power producers. Concerning renewable energies and their roll-out on local level, there is no question from experience that a good coordination e.g. with communal enterprises, be it communal power supplier or other actors on the local level which are part of the communal self-determination quest and obligation, as outlined in national Constitutions such as under Art. 28 of the German Constitution. Often, these are entities which are wholly or to a larger percentage owned by the municipality. This means that at present they would not fulfil the criteria the Commission refers to under 2. Definitions (9) (j) (“.‘small and medium-sized enterprise’ or ‘SME’ means an undertaking that fulfils the conditions laid down in the Commission Recommendation concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises” EREF strongly suggests for an urgent remedy in allowing all municipal SMEs, which do fulfil all the other criteria under SME, to participate and to benefit from a higher aid intensity.
Finally, EREF welcomes the clarification in point (8) that nuclear energy is excluded from the scope of these guidelines. Given the specific legal framework for nuclear under the EURATOM Treaty, EREF insists that any potential state aid for nuclear energy must follow a separate legal pathway and be subject to extensive public consultation and policy scrutiny before any specific guidelines are developed.
The full version of the document is attached.