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Lisbon, January 17, 2010 (FBC) The European Union’s response to the United States’ stimulus package for green tech investments should use financial instruments that ensure equality among all members, rather than favoring the bloc’s industrialized nations, Portugal’s finance minister said Tuesday.
The European Commission is preparing legislation to make life easier for the green industry with state aid and a European sovereign fund aimed at keeping companies from going overseas, the head of the European Commission said on Tuesday.
Brussels, concerned about the growing number of European companies moving to the United States, has announced a $369 billion plan to subsidize green manufacturing.
“The idea is good and it goes in the right direction,” Fernando Medina told Portuguese broadcaster RTP on the sidelines of a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels.
But it must be implemented through European mechanisms that ensure equality in the European space, he said.
Medina said it is important to work out the details of the plan because “if it is not accessible to SMEs, or if it is limited to technologies or industries in certain countries, then it will not be possible to target and ensure only the industrialized countries of Central Europe.” A level playing field”.
“The small European countries cannot be defeated by the big countries in an internal competition that does not make sense to open up at the moment,” he said.
Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by David Latona and Bernadette Baugh
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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