The municipalities of Lusatia in Brandenburg and Saxony are united in their support for Lusatia's application to become the first climate-neutral model region - a so-called Net Zero Valley - in Europe. This was announced by the municipal alliance Lausitzrunde on Thursday after a closed meeting in Finsterwalde (Elbe-Elster). Two weeks ago in Brussels, a delegation of mayors presented the application as a transformation region to the European Commission to EU Commissioner Thierry Breton.
With the Net Zero Industry Act, Europe aims to strengthen the attractiveness of its business location through faster approval procedures, more targeted training and further education of and for skilled workers in net zero technologies and better market access for "Made-in-Europe" technologies.
EU funding would come at the right time
The "Net Zero Valley" Lusatia offers a new set of instruments to lead the structural change to far-reaching success, said Christine Herntier, spokesperson for the Brandenburg municipalities. This offers extraordinary opportunities for the "Lusatia region of the future", which would also include the acceleration of planning and approval procedures, said the Mayor of Weißwasser, Torsten Pötzsch, on behalf of the Saxon municipalities. The funding would come at the right time. "Because this and the allocation of structural funds, which is sometimes incomprehensible to us, are currently the major stumbling blocks in the current structural change process," he said.
