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European Commission Official Sees $100 bln In Private Chip Investment By 2030

The European Chips Act is on track to help attract more than 100 billion euros ($108.41 billion) worth of private investment to the European semiconductor industry by 2030, a European Commission official said on Wednesday.

Thomas Skordas was speaking at a conference in Antwerp about the future of the initiative, which is Europe’s answer to similar programmes in the United States and Japan and to China’s support for its domestic computer chip makers.

The European Chips Act has led to “promises for investments of the order of 100 billion euros to expand the manufacturing capacity within the EU by 2030”, Skordas said.

The European Union Chips Act, billed as offering funding of 43 billion euros, relies heavily on individual governments with the Commission so far approving very little actual funding.

However, firms including Intel INTC.O and TSMC 2330.TW have announced plans to build plants in Germany at a cost of more than 30 billion euros this year.

Skordas, an official at the Commission’s digital unit, said the commission expects to finalise funding for R&D pilot lines in four sub-sectors of the chip industry by September, including a 2.5 billion euro grant for developing extremely advanced chips in Europe.

Skordas said unspecified funding for another pilot line to develop photonics, or chips that use light instead of electricity, is still in the works.

The Commission is also arranging funding for a European design platform to give companies, academics and startups access to the software tools needed to design their own chips. Most advanced chipmakers design chips but leave the manufacturing to specialists such as TSMC, Samsung 005930.KS or Intel.

“In July, we expect to open the call for the consortium that will be responsible for designing and developing this platform at the European level,” Skordas said.

Cyprus Fuel Prices Jump 20.5% As Energy Costs Rise Across The EU

Cyprus recorded a 20.5% year-on-year increase in the prices of fuels and lubricants for personal transport in May 2026, according to Eurostat data released on Monday.

The increase was broadly in line with the European Union average of 20.7%, with fuel and lubricant prices rising across all EU member states during the period.

Cyprus Tracks The EU Average

Among EU countries, the largest annual increases were recorded in Bulgaria (33.9%), Luxembourg (32.2%), Lithuania (30.8%) and Romania (30.4%). At the other end of the scale, Hungary registered the smallest increase at 3.5%, while annual growth ranged from 12.7% in Poland to 29.2% in France across the remaining member states.

Eurostat noted that fuel and lubricant prices generally declined across the EU until February 2026 before moving higher in subsequent months.

Diesel And Petrol Follow Different Paths

Across the European Union, diesel prices increased by 29% in May 2026 compared with the same month a year earlier, while petrol prices rose by 16.2%. Monthly trends, however, were more mixed. Between April and May 2026, diesel prices across the EU fell by 5.8%, whereas petrol prices increased by 0.8%.

In Cyprus, diesel prices declined by 1.5% over the same period. Although lower than in April, the decrease was less pronounced than in Germany (-11.9%), Greece (-8.5%), Estonia (-8.4%) and Ireland (-8.1%).

Petrol prices moved in the opposite direction, rising by 2.1% between April and May. A similar pattern was observed across much of the EU, with 23 member states reporting monthly increases. Italy recorded the largest monthly rise in petrol prices at 6.9%, while decreases were reported in Germany (-5.6%), Ireland (-2.0%) and Sweden (-0.7%).

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