The second call for the EU Innovation Fund’s large-scale projects closed on 3 March 2022. The total amount of applications was 138 and the total funding requested amounts to EUR 12,1 billion. The projects are now being evaluated. A second call for small-scale projects is planned to be launched end of March 2022.
The application for Horizon Europe Projects for Climate, Energy and Mobility topics is still open. Energy-related projects relevant for the sector can be found under Cluster 5 in CL5-2022-D3-01, application deadline is 24 April 2022.
On Tuesday, the ITRE committee discussed about the recently released RePowerEU Communication by the Commission. Committee members welcomed the communication and Commissioner Kadri Simson answered questions regarding an emergency plan if imports from Russia would stop tomorrow and faster permitting. The question why bioenergy was not included as a solution in the communication was left unanswered. For more information, please contact Irene di Padua.
The Agriculture and Rural Development Committee published its draft opinion on the proposal for a regulation on commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation. In the draft opinion, the rapporteur, Mazaly Aguilar (ECR, ES) proposed removing “soya” from the list of relevant commodities and adding “cane sugar, pigmeat and poultry”. She also proposed removing the requirement that in order for wood to be deforestation-free, it must have “been harvested from the forest without inducing forest degradation after December 31, 2020”. Additionally, she proposes reframing the risk categories from standard, low, and high risk to zero, low, and high risk. For more information, please contact Daniel Reinemann.
