After 18 months of negotiations, the US Senate on Sunday adopted President Joe Biden’s major plan on climate and health, notably approving this tax credit for the acquisition of a electric vehicle coming from an American factory and equipped with a battery produced in the United States.
“The EU is extremely concerned about this bill affecting transatlantic trade. We believe that it discriminates against foreign manufacturers compared to American manufacturers, ”said a spokesperson for the European Commission, Miriam Garcia Ferrer.
In addition, such a provision would be incompatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), she judged. Brussels and Washington have had several major disputes before the WTO in recent years, in particular over aid to the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing or American customs duties on European steel.
The tax credit on electric carswhich must now be voted on by the House of Representatives before its promulgation, comes at a time when Europeans are seeking to inflate their own production of electric batteries with colossal investments.
“Tax credits are an important incentive to encourage demand for electric cars (…) but we must ensure that the measures introduced are fair,” the spokeswoman said during a regular press briefing.
“We therefore continue to urge the United States to remove these discriminatory elements from the bill and ensure that it is fully WTO compliant,” she said.
For its part, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a group of American and foreign manufacturers representing nearly all the cars sold in the United States, finds the bill too restrictive: some 70% of the models of electric vehicles currently sold in the United States would not be eligible for the tax credit.