Von der Leyen nudges Biden on subsidies at G7 summit

HIROSHIMA, Japan — As if Russia and China weren’t enough to dominate the G7 agenda, the EU added its own feud with the U.S. on the first day of the Hiroshima summit, calling for transparency on industrial subsidies.

In the first session of the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asked G7 leaders — among them U.S. President Joe Biden — to play fair when it comes to green technology. The EU and the U.S. are still trying to hammer out a deal allowing European companies to share in billions of dollars in U.S. tax incentives for electric vehicles, which has been a major source of transatlantic friction since the Biden administration announced the Inflation Reduction Act last year.

Addressing a session on the global economy, von der Leyen told G7 leaders: "This clean-tech race is an opportunity to go faster and further, together ... Our competition should create additional manufacturing capacity and not come at each other’s expense."

"We need to provide a clear, predictable business environment to our clean tech industries. The starting point is transparency among the G7 how we support manufacturing," von der Leyen said, according to her spokesperson. "Where we have specific concerns regarding fair competition, we should find ways to address them."

She added that while the EU and the U.S. have already achieved a number of solutions, "some of this work is still ongoing."

The G7 is aiming to focus on cooperation in critical raw materials, as part of a broader strategy of economic security amid the threat of overdependency on China.

"I hope we can take forward a Critical Raw Materials Club at this G7 meeting," von der Leyen said. "And I hope our bilateral EU-U.S. discussion on sustainable steel and aluminium can also become a global arrangement."