BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany launched a tender process on Tuesday for grants to support energy-intensive businesses as part of a 4 billion euro funding round, a declared the Ministry of the Economy.
As part of Germany’s ambitions to achieve carbon neutrality in terms of climate by 2045, Berlin plans to grant subsidies to companies in the steel, glass, paper and chemicals sectors. over 15 years in exchange for reducing carbon emissions in production.
The European Commission has approved this process, under which companies will be selected through a call for tenders and will compete to reduce their emissions at a lower cost.
Through these so-called climate protection contracts, companies will be compensated for additional costs in sectors where climate-friendly production processes are currently not competitive.
“Today is a good day for Germany in terms of industry, for climate protection and for sustainable jobs in our country,” said Economy Minister Robert Habeck.
Berlin had initially planned to offer more ambitious subsidies, but the program was jeopardized by a Constitutional Court ruling last year, which prevented the government from using some 60 billion euros of debt for climate protection projects.
(Reporting Markus Wacket, written by Riham Alkousaa; Stéphanie Hamel, editing by Kate Entringer)
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