Battery Booster Strategy

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Key points

The EESC:

• supports the Battery Booster Strategy to strengthen Europe’s battery value chain, but calls for clearer priorities, stronger tools and a scope beyond EV batteries;

• calls for a credible long-term EU financing plan, with stronger Commission and Member State support, including via the next MFF;

• emphasises that ‘Made in Europe’ should signal high quality and strong social and environmental standards, and that scaling projects into competitive gigafactories requires timely funding with workable conditionalities, aligned permitting and market-access tools, and equal enforcement for all products sold in the EU;

• calls for an inclusive ecosystem approach that supports SMEs, suppliers and recyclers alongside large plants, and stresses that public support should be tied to quality jobs, full EU compliance and the European Pillar of Social Rights;

• recommends linking State aid, procurement and subsidies to technology transfer and local-content conditions to build EU expertise;

• calls for scale-up to be matched by more dismantling and recycling capacity, funding for next-generation technologies, more harmonised collection and measures that make recycling economically attractive;

• calls for R&I to prioritise pilots and first-of-a-kind lines for critical chemicals and EU-made machinery, and to fund sodium and other non-lithium chemistries;

• proposes workstreams on battery material safety to set clear procurement and conformity standards, reduce fragmentation and support efficient manufacturing, aligned with EU and international rules;

• warns that rapid expansion requires stronger OSH, including adequate staffing, training, preventive investment, clear hazardous-material documentation, effective inspections (including for migrant and mobile workers) and strong worker participation and social dialogue.