EEB contribution to the assessment of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP)

The European Environmental Bureau welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the assessment of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP).

According to article 8.2 of Regulation (EU) 2024/795, the interim evaluation should assess to which extent the STEP’s objectives have been achieved, as well as the relevance of STEP’s actions and the appropriateness of a new legislative proposal amening the Regulation with the aim of “reducing the Union’s strategic dependencies and strengthening Union industrial policy”.

Article 2 lists the goals of STEP; sovereignty and security, as well as reducing the Union’s strategic dependencies in strategic sectors are mentioned at the top of the list (art. 2.1), while art. 2.1.a (ii) mentions “clean and resource efficient technologies, including net-zero technologies as defined in the Net-Zero Industry Act”. Art. 2.2 clarifies the previous provision underlining that the technologies should bring an “innovative, emerging and cutting-edge element with significant economic potential” or they should “contribute to reducing or preventing strategic dependencies of the Union”.

Whilst the STEP objectives as per Art 2(1) refer to a list of “critical” technologies such as “clean and resource efficient technologies”, there is no further clarification as to what is concretely meant. Depending on where the interests and ambition level lay, there may be different views as to what minimal expectations relating to supporting those options could be and under what conditions.

The EEB provided already preliminary responses on the first call for feedback on 21/03/2024 which are still valid as to expectations on implementation of STEP and tools needed for enabling evaluation of its positive impact