European Battery Alliance: high-level meeting with industry to discuss pressing issues for the battery sector

Yesterday, Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič and Commissioner Thierry Breton held a high-level meeting with industry representatives of the European battery value chain to discuss the most pressing tasks ahead. EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle also participated. Participants agreed that continued concerted effort was needed to address in particular: the domestic supply of raw materials and their processing, advanced battery materials, battery recycling capacity and the skills gap. This would help maintain and strengthen the momentum based on growing investment in the sector and an expanding electric mobility market in Europe. In 2020, sales of electric vehicles hit historic highs, amounting to 10.5% of all new car registrations in the EU, compared to a 3% market share the year before. Vice-President Šefčovič said: “This discussion is extremely timely, as our Member States are finalising their national recovery and resilience plans. I encourage them to include investment in raw and advanced materials, but also reskilling and upskilling programmes. The latter would help us tackle a growing skills shortage, set to reach some 800,000 job openings across the entire battery value chain by 2025. It is a threefold imperative – not only to see emerging industrial projects up and running, but also to support the transformation of Europe’s car industry and to reinforce the social dimension of our recovery.” The discussion will continue at the European Battery Alliance Ministerial on 12 March.