France’s Le Maire starts talks on green subsidies for EU products under IRA law

PARIS (Reuters) -French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday he has started talks with his counterparts to see if EU-made “green products” sold in the United States would benefit from the country’s new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

He said he had already begun the follow-up work with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen after French President Emmanuel Macron voiced European concerns about the IRA during his trip to Washington.

The IRA is a $430-billion bill that offers massive subsidies for U.S.-made products and is aimed at tackling the climate crisis.

“We have (…) opened the discussion with our American friends (…)” to check whether certain European goods sold in the United States like electric-vehicle batteries could also benefit from the IRA,” Le Maire told France Inter radio.

“And we will look at all green industrial products to see if they can benefit from this American legislation”, Le Maire said, adding he was coordinating next moves with German Economy Minister Robert Habeck with whom he had spoken over the weekend.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Macron agreed during a state visit last week to “fix” issues arising from U.S. legislation that includes subsidies for American-made products, Macron said after the trip.

European leaders say the legislative package signed by Biden in August is unfair to non-American companies and would be a serious blow to their economies as Europe deals with the fallout from Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.

(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Arun Koyyur)