EU complains to WTO over UK’s CfD scheme
UK will rigorously contest EU’s claim that scheme’s local content criteria are discriminatory
The European Commission has raised a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the UK’s “discriminatory” award of contract-for-difference (CfD) subsidies to renewables, mainly offshore wind projects. The UK applies local content criteria to determine the eligibility of operators for the scheme and ultimately to pay out the financial support for the project, according to the complaint. “This incentivises operators to favour UK content in their applications, to the detriment of imported inputs,” the Commission says. “This violates the WTO’s core tenet that imports must be able to compete on an equal footing with domestic products and harms EU suppliers.” The UK’s local content cri

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