Industry extends_CO2 aid to more than 20 new industrial sectors

The modification of the royal decree adapts the regulations to European guidelines.

The Ministry of Industry and Tourism has taken a new step to strengthen the competitiveness of Spanish industry by extending the scope of the mechanism for offsetting the indirect costs of CO2 emissions. The amendment to Royal Decree 309/2022, published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), incorporates more than twenty new industrial sectors and subsectors into the aid system and improves the support conditions for the activities already included. The reform adapts Spanish legislation to the recent update of the European guidelines on state aid linked to the emissions trading system and responds to the increase in energy costs and the risk of carbon leakage faced by certain industrial sectors exposed to international competition. Among the main novelties is the incorporation of new strategic sectors such as the manufacture of basic organic chemical products, fertilisers and nitrogen compounds, plastics in primary forms, artificial and synthetic fibres, electric batteries and accumulators, flat glass, hollow glass, ceramic tiles and tiles, as well as different textile, wood and metal mining activities. Likewise, the regulatory update increases the maximum aid intensity from 75% to 80% for sectors that were already part of the compensation mechanism, while new incorporated sectors will be able to receive aid of up to 75% of the indirect CO2 costs incurred. This year’s call is scheduled to be launched in the coming weeks.

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