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Daily news24 May 2024Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs1 min read

The European Battery Alliance met to discuss a new action plan, reflecting the current geopolitical context

Today, Executive Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič chaired the 8th High-Level Meeting of the European Battery Alliance. 

The main objective was to reflect on the successful implementation of the Battery Action Plan adopted by the Commission in 2018, while discussing its possible follow-up, based on the input presented by the Alliance.

The meeting was also attended by Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, Minister for Economy, Innovation, Work, Social Economy and Agriculture Jo Brouns on behalf of the Belgian EU Presidency, other Member States, Norway, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as industrial representatives of the entire battery value chain.

Executive Vice President, Maroš Šefčovič, said: “We can all be proud of the work done since 2018 when I put forward our first battery action plan. But the global context has changed and so have the challenges the European battery value chain faces. Therefore, the time is ripe to identify new strategic actions that will help us focus our minds and efforts, notably to ensure level playing field for our industry in the face of assertive economic policies and public support schemes elsewhere.”

Commissioner Thierry Breton said: “With around €180 billion invested in structuring projects, our efforts to boost Europe's battery manufacturing capacity are starting to bear fruit. Whereas in 2017 we started from a capacity of just 1 gigawatt-hour, the investment projects announced today should enable us to produce enough lithium-ion cells by 2027 to meet our own demand for electric vehicles and energy storage. But to reach our NZIA objective for 2030, i.e. 550 gigawatt-hours of production capacity for batteries, we must not slow down, but speed up. I know we can count on the battery alliance's relentless efforts on this endeavor.”

The 2018 Action Plan has helped put in place, among other things, the world-class Battery regulation as well as some 30 gigafactory projects, potentially totalling 1,3 TWh of capacity by 2030. In 2023, total manufacturing capacity installed reached167 GWh. 

See the main takeaways of the meeting.