Brussels has approved €902mn in state aid for battery maker Northvolt’s factory in Germany, the first use of a new mechanism that allows governments to provide more funding to companies that have been offered higher subsidies elsewhere.
The Swedish company had threatened to pull plans for its plant in Heide in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, citing more generous subsidies available in the US through President Joe Biden’s $783bn Inflation Reduction Act.
But it committed to the project in May after Berlin pledged funding under a new EU state aid regime that allows national governments to match subsidies on offer outside the EU if there is a risk that a project of “strategic importance” is likely to be taken elsewhere.