Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission

"We agree that tax credits can constitute important incentives to drive demand for electric vehicles. Many EU Member States also make use of such incentives.

"However, we also believe that these tax incentives should be fair and avoid discriminating between car manufacturers. In that sense, the EU has a number of concerns with regard to the design of the incentives that are currently under discussion, which would, in their current state, result in unjustified discrimination against EU car and car component manufacturers, whether imported or manufactured in the US. In particular, the bills proposed in Congress include language that would make parts of the tax credit for the purchase of electric vehicles dependent on the assembly of the vehicle in the U.S. and on the unionization of the plant assembling the car. In addition, the proposal adopted by the House on 19 November includes a “Made in America” credit dependent on domestic content. These elements raise strong concerns."