"One day after announcing their top candidacy, managers of chemical and other energy-intensive companies are presenting a ten-point plan for their second term in office: They are calling for a new EU fund for energy-intensive industries, fewer requirements and a strategy for competitive energy prices.
When announcing her top candidate for the European elections on Monday, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised to reinvent herself. The EU's competitiveness and an industrial agenda should play a central role in her second term in office.
On Tuesday in Antwerp, 57 company bosses and 16 representatives of industrial associations and unions presented a ten-point plan with demands for a European industrial pact ("Industrial Deal"), with which the next Commission should supplement the Green Deal.
The focus is on deregulation, a strong focus on entrepreneurial initiative and more government aid, including a new fund for the rollout of clean technologies in energy-intensive industries ("Clean Tech Deployment Fund").
A new “First Vice President for the Industrial Deal” should oversee this in the Commission. “We need our industry and its innovations to be able to withstand climate change,” said Belgian Prime Minister and incumbent EU Council President Alexander De Croo.
He called the industrial summit in Antwerp, where the ten-point plan was published. "But it is not enough for Europe to be a continent of industrial innovation, it must also be a continent of industrial production," he added.
The climate targets pose major challenges for the industry, at a time when corporations and medium-sized businesses are facing a severe downturn, the paper says.
This is exacerbated by overcapacity in China and billions in government aid from the USA. “Sites are being closed, production is stopped, employees are being laid off, Europe needs a business case,” warn the signatories. Without a targeted industrial policy, Europe runs the risk of becoming dependent on third parties for basic products and chemicals.
The signatories of the declaration do not go so far as to call for a break in regulation. The next commission's first official act should be to present a legislative package that eliminates contradictory rules and excessive reporting requirements.
Furthermore, the Commission should be guided by a “new spirit” in its legislation, which relies on free enterprise instead of detailed government requirements to achieve the climate goals of the Green Deal. They call for a better assessment of the consequences of new EU laws based on solid scientific data.
The Commission should also further “simplify” state aid law. This should allow member states to grant more subsidies. These funds from the states and the new EU fund, the amount of which is left open in the paper, are intended to support not only the construction of new factories, but also the operational costs of energy-intensive industries such as chemicals, steel or cement.
The approval process should also be further accelerated. The structural aid from the EU budget and the remaining money from the Corona fund should flow into the expansion of the infrastructure for energy and technologies such as the capture, use or storage of carbon (CCUS).
In order to reduce energy costs, which are "simply too high to be competitive", the signatories call for a "real EU energy strategy". This is intended to facilitate cross-border electricity trading and promote the expansion of networks for hydrogen and other “green molecules”.
In addition to renewable sources, the paper also identifies nuclear energy as a priority. Representatives of energy-intensive companies and industries signed, but not the European industry association Business Europe. These include the head of BASF, Martin Brudermüller, as well as board members from Evonik, Bayer, Covestro, Lanxess, Heidelberg Materials and Wienerberger. Top managers of energy companies Exxon Mobil and Shell also signed the declaration. On the union side, the chairman of the IG BCE and the EU chemicals union, Michael Vassiliadis, signed." [1]
Great
thinking. It will not work though. To build the infrastructure
necessary you need a long time and a lot of cheap dirty gas that the USA,
China and Russia have.
We, the European Union, don't have money to buy this gas from anywhere,
except cheap from Russia (two times less expensive). Nobody in the world will buy our stuff and services produced with two times more expensive energy. Von der Leyen wants to take Ukraine from Russia into the orbit of Germany.
Russians in Ukraine don't like this idea and resist. Russia has to help
them. Von der Leyen is set to push sanctions on Russia by cutting off
cheap Russian energy from EU.
Von der Leyen's idea: Ukraine - first, green energy transition - second, doesn't work. To save our home, the European Union, we need to change the European Union's political leadership.
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