Europe-Asia Policy Workshop: Demand-Side Measures to Secure a Clean Transition

On October 27th 2026, Institut Montaigne held a policy workshop bringing together over 50 participants including industry leaders, policymakers, and experts from Europe, Japan, and Korea to explore opportunities for collaboration in establishing a strong framework for clean industrial policies and diversified supply chains in clean technologies.

This workshop was held as part of the Cleantech Competitiveness Support Initiative, a project launched by Institut Montaigne to identify the conditions for a European clean industrial policy capable of strengthening Europe's productive base, developing new technological capabilities, and reducing its strategic dependencies, while preserving an open economy and deepening its international partnerships.

The event opened with remarks by François Godement, Special Advisor and Resident Senior Fellow for Asia and America at Institut Montaigne, followed by four thematic panels: 

• Energy Crisis, Trade, Climate, and Chinese Overcapacity: this discussion provided a strategic assessment of the growing intersection between energy security, industrial decarbonization, trade policy, and economic security, against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, high energy costs, and increasing dependence on cleantech supply chains controlled by China.
• Europe’s Industrial Accelerator Act and trusted partners cooperation: this session examined the measures currently discussed under the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), with a specific focus on local content provisions, and how they could reshape Europe’s approach to clean technology manufacturing and cooperation with trusted partners in Asia.
• Demand-Side Strategies for the Battery Value Chain: as Europe, Japan, and South Korea seek to reduce strategic vulnerabilities while accelerating electrification, this panel explored how demand-side industrial policies can support the development, localization, and resilience of the battery value chain, from critical raw materials and refining to cell manufacturing, recycling, and next-generation battery technologies. 
• Creating Lead Markets for Decarbonization: this last session examined how governments and industry can work together to create lead markets capable of supporting investment in low-carbon production technologies at scale, while not enhancing dependencies on the Chinese value-chain.

The workshop concluded with remarks by Joseph Dellatte, Head of Energy and Climate Studies and Resident Fellow at Institut Montaigne. 

Institut Montaigne would like to thank all participants for their contributions to these important discussions, which highlighted the opportunities for deeper cooperation in strengthening Europe's clean industrial base and building more resilient cleantech value chains. 
Institut Montaigne also warmly thanks its partners who supported the organisation of this event: the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in France, Sungwoo Kim (from Kim & Chang), Catalyse Europe, and the Jacques Delors Centre at the Hertie School in Berlin.
This event was hosted by Institut Montaigne's Energy and Climate Studies' team.