The Industry, Research and Energy and the Budgets committees adopted their position on Monday on the establishment of a “Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP)” designed to boost critical strategic technologies through various means, such as financial support, the ‘Sovereignty Seal‘ and ‘Sovereignty Portal‘.

STEP aims to strengthen various EU programmes and funds and to channel up to EUR 160 billion into new investments, alongside cohesion policy incentives and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The platform would foster the growth of crucial technological value chains in sectors like digital, net-zero, and biotechnologies, address labour and skill shortages, and support innovation. In their amendments, MEPs advocate for an extra EUR 3 billion on top of the proposed 10 billion, bringing the STEP budget up to 13 billion euro in new funds.

Moreover, MEPs propose a closer alignment of this regulation with the Net-Zero Industry Act and the Critical Raw Materials…