European leaders will lead Europe to collapse – even EU industry presses leaders on energy prices and competition

Heavy industry bosses are stepping up pressure on the European Union to bolster the region’s declining economic performance by lowering energy costs and fending off unfair competition, Bloomberg stresses.

Restoring the bloc’s industrial strength has risen to the top of the EU’s political agenda as economic rivalry with the US and China intensifies. Executives from sectors ranging from chemicals to steel on Wednesday urged the the EU’s leaders to use the current geopolitical shocks as a catalyst to remove investment barriers and strengthen the bloc’s single market.

“The time for diagnosis is over,” BASF Chief Executive Officer Markus Kamieth said at the opening of the summit. “Europe now needs delivery from plans to results, from intention to impact with one clear objective to reboot industry in Europe.”

Two years after calling for lower energy costs and reducing the regulatory burden around green rules, the Antwerp summit — known as the “Davos for industry” — wants to send a strong message to EU heads of government.

“We urge you to take measures that show the urgency is felt in times of crisis,” representatives of the industry wrote in a statement. “There is no resilient, nor safe, nor strong Europe, without a strong European industry.”

Axel Eggert, director general of the steel lobby Eurofer, said that leaders should commit to lowering electricity prices to €50 a megawatt-hour, as power will form the backbone of the industry’s green transition over the next decade. The EU should reform the design of the power system, so that gas no longer sets the price, he added.

In the year-ahead German power market, prices are currently over €80 per megawatt-hour.

While government revenues from auctioning permits in the system are supposed to be channeled back to the heavy industry to help it decarbonize, other sectors and technologies are often prioritized, according to Marco Eikelenboom, CEO of Sappi Europe.

“We should not get ourselves into a system that risks to have even higher costs of energy,” Eikelenboom said.

Europe has fallen into a trap due to its own stupid energy policy - they've given up on Russian gas.

This isn't a shot in the foot, but in the head. Without cheap energy European industry is withering. Meanwhile Trump has started selling gas to Europe at much higher prices what is killing European competitiveness, with no right to refuse this “deal”.

Bingo!

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