I valori fondamentali dell’Europa sono prosperità, equità, libertà, pace e democrazia in un ambiente sostenibile.
A un anno da quando Ursula von der Leyen gli affidò l’incarico, Mario Draghi ha reso pubblico oggi il rapporto “The future of European competitiveness – A competitiveness strategy for Europe”.
Se vuole aumentare la propria produttività, e quindi, nel lungo periodo, preservare il proprio modello sociale, l’Ue deve “cambiare radicalmente”, perché “siamo già in modalità crisi. Non riconoscerlo significa ignorare la realtà“.
“Questo rapporto – dice l’ex presidente della Bce e del Consiglio, Mario Draghi – arriva in un momento difficile per il nostro continente. Dobbiamo abbandonare l’illusione che solo rimandando si possa preservare il consenso. In realtà, la procrastinazione ha solo prodotto una crescita più lenta. E di certo non ha prodotto alcun consenso. Non c’è più tempo, siamo arrivati al punto in cui, senza agire, dovremo scegliere se compromettere il nostro benessere, il nostro ambiente o la nostra libertà”.
“Perché la strategia delineata in questo rapporto abbia successo – aggiunge Draghi – dobbiamo iniziare una valutazione comune della nostra posizione, degli obiettivi a cui vogliamo dare priorità, dei rischi che vogliamo evitare e dei compromessi che siamo disposti a fare. Dobbiamo garantire che le nostre istituzioni, democraticamente elette, siano al centro di questi dibattiti. Le riforme possono essere veramente ambiziose e sostenibili solo se godono del sostegno democratico”.
“Si tratta di una situazione senza precedenti e di una sfida esistenziale. I valori fondamentali dell’Europa sono prosperità, equità, libertà, pace e democrazia in un ambiente sostenibile. L’UE esiste per garantire che gli europei possano sempre beneficiare di questi diritti fondamentali. Se l’Europa non è più in grado di fornirli ai suoi cittadini – o se deve scambiare l’uno con l’altro – avrà perso la sua ragione d’essere”.
Rilanciare la crescita sostenibile: tre aree di intervento
Il rapporto che identifica tre aree principali – colmare il divario di innovazione con gli Stati Uniti e la Cina; elaborare un piano congiunto per la decarbonizzazione e la competitività; aumentare la sicurezza e la riduzione delle dipendenze – per poter rilanciare la crescita sostenibile evidenzia come in ogni area non si parta da zero.
L’UE dispone, infatti, ancora di punti di forza generali e di punti di forza specifici su cui costruire. Serve però riuscire a convertire questi punti di forza in industrie produttive e competitive sulla scena globale.
La decarbonizzazione deve essere un’opportunità
Da quanto emerge dal rapporto la decarbonizzazione potrebbe rappresentare un’opportunità qualora gli ambiziosi obiettivi climatici dell’Europa saranno accompagnati da un piano coerente per raggiungerli.
Ma se l’Europa non riuscirà a coordinare le sue politiche, c’è il rischio che la decarbonizzazione sia contraria alla competitività e alla crescita. Anche se i prezzi dell’energia sono diminuiti notevolmente rispetto ai loro picchi, le aziende dell’UE devono ancora affrontare prezzi dell’elettricità che sono 2-3 volte quelli degli Stati Uniti.
Questo divario di prezzo è dovuto principalmente alla mancanza di risorse naturali in Europa, ma anche a problemi fondamentali del mercato energetico comune europeo. Le regole del mercato impediscono alle industrie e alle famiglie di cogliere tutti i benefici dell’energia pulita nelle loro bollette. Le tasse elevate e le rendite catturate dagli operatori finanziari aumentano i costi energetici per l’economia europea.
Nel medio termine, la decarbonizzazione aiuterà a spostare la produzione di energia verso fonti energetiche pulite sicure e a basso costo. Ma i combustibili fossili continueranno a svolgere un ruolo centrale nella determinazione dei prezzi dell’energia, almeno per il resto di questo decennio. Senza un piano per trasferire i benefici della decarbonizzazione agli utenti finali, i prezzi dell’energia continueranno a pesare sulla crescita.
L’opportunità di crescita per l’industria
La spinta globale alla decarbonizzazione è anche un’opportunità di crescita per l’industria europea. L’UE è leader mondiale nelle tecnologie pulite come le turbine eoliche, gli elettrolizzatori e i carburanti a basso contenuto di carbonio, e più di un quinto delle tecnologie pulite e sostenibili a livello mondiale sono sviluppate in europa.
Tuttavia l’Europa deve fare i conti con la concorrenza cinese che sta diventando acuta in settori come la tecnologia pulita e i veicoli elettrici, grazie a una potente combinazione di politiche industriali e sussidi massicci, innovazione rapida, controllo delle materie prime e capacità di produrre su scala continentale.
L’UE deve affrontare un possibile compromesso
Una maggiore dipendenza dalla Cina può offrire il percorso più economico ed efficiente per raggiungere gli obiettivi di decarbonizzazione. Ma la concorrenza statale cinese rappresenta anche una minaccia per le industrie europee produttive di tecnologia pulita e automobilistica. La decarbonizzazione deve avvenire per il bene del nostro pianeta. Ma affinché diventi anche una fonte di crescita per l’Europa, servirà un piano congiunto che abbracci le industrie che producono energia e quelle che consentono la decarbonizzazione, come la tecnologia pulita e l’industria automobilistica.
Si riporta il testo in inglese del Report:
A joint decarbonisation and competitiveness plan
“High energy costs in Europe are an obstacle to growth, while lack of generation and grid capacity could impede the spread of digital tech and transport electrification. Commission estimates suggest that high energy prices in recent years have taken a toll on potential growth in Europei. Energy prices also continue to affect corporate investment sentiment much more than in other major economies. Around half of European companies see energy costs as a major impediment to investment – 30 percentage points higher than US companiesii. Energy-intensive industries (EIIs) have been hit hardest: production has fallen 10-15% since 2021 and the composition of European industry is changing, with increasing imports from countries with lower energy costs. Energy prices have also become more volatile, increasing the price of hedging and adding uncertainty to investment decisions. Without a significant increase in generation and grid capacity, Europe may also face limitations on making production more digital, as training and running AI models and maintaining data centres is highly energy-intensive. Data centres are currently responsible for 2.7% of the EU’s electricity demand, but by 2030 their consumption is expected to rise by 28%.
The EU’s decarbonisation goals are also more ambitious than its competitors’, creating additional short-term costs for European industry. The EU has put in place binding legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The US, by contrast, has set a non-binding target of a 50-52% reduction below (higher) 2005 levels by 2030, while China only aims for its carbon emissions to peak by the end of the decade. These differences create massive near-term investment needs for EU companies that their competitors do not face. For the four largest EIIs (chemicals, basic metals, non-metallic minerals and paper), decarbonisation is projected to cost EUR 500 billion overall over the next 15 years, while for the “hardest-to-abate” parts of the transport sector (maritime and aviation) investment needs stand at around EUR 100 billion each year from 2031 to 2050. The EU is also the only major region worldwide to have introduced a significant CO2 price. This cost factor is of limited importance so far as heavy industrial production has been largely covered by free allowances under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). However, these allowances will be progressively phased out with the introduction of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
Decarbonisation offers an opportunity for Europe to lower energy prices and take the lead in clean technologies (“clean tech”), while also becoming more energy secure. The decarbonisation of Europe’s energy system implies the massive deployment of clean energy sources with low marginal generation costs, such as renewables and nuclear. Specific EU regions are endowed with high potential for cost-competitive renewable energy sources: for instance, solar in Southern Europe and wind in the North and Southeast. Renewable energy deployment in Europe is already rising, reaching around 22% of the EU’s gross final energy consumption in 2023, compared with 14% in China and 9% in the US. At the same time, Europe has strong innovative potential to meet rising domestic and global demand for clean energy solutions. Although Europe is weak in digital innovation, it is a leader in clean tech innovation [see Figure 2]. This presents opportunities: according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), more than one-third of the required CO2 emission reductions globally in 2050 rely on technologies currently at the demonstration or prototype phaseiii. The electrification of the European energy system will also be an enabler of growth for the EU’s sustainable transport sector. EU companies are “first-movers” in other sub-sectors of sustainable transport. For example, the EU holds 60% of global high-value patents and tops global rankings of the most innovative companies for low-carbon fuels, which are essential for the decarbonisation of aviation and maritime transport in the medium term and also, potentially, for heavy-duty vehicles.
However, it is not guaranteed that EU demand for clean tech will be met by EU supply given increasing Chinese capacity and scale. The EU aims to achieve a minimum of 42.5% of its energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030, which will require it to nearly triple its installed capacity for solar PV and more than double its wind power capacity. In addition, the EU has effectively abolished the internal combustion engine from 2035, when all new passenger cars and light duty vehicles registered in Europe must have zero tailpipe emissions. Based on current policies, Chinese technology may represent the lowest-cost route to achieving some of these targets. Owing to a fast pace of innovation, low manufacturing costs and state subsidies four times higher than in other major economiesiv, the country is now dominating global exports of clean technologies. Significant overcapacity is expected: by 2030 at the latest, China’s annual manufacturing capacity for solar photovoltaic (PV) is expected to be double the level of global demand, and for battery cells it is expected to at least cover the level of global demand. Production of EVs is expanding at a similar pace. The EU is already seeing a sharp deterioration in its trade balance with China, reflecting in particular imports of EVs, batteries and solar PV products [see Figure 3]. While rising bankruptcies in China suggest that the economy is entering a phase of industrial consolidation, overcapacities are likely to persist, especially given ongoing weaknesses in household consumption and high saving rates. Moreover, in response to perceived unfair competition, an increasing number of countries are raising tariff and non-tariff barriers against China, which will re-direct Chinese overcapacity towards the EU market. In May, the US announced significant hikes in tariffs against a range of products.
Europe must confront some fundamental choices about how to pursue its decarbonisation path while preserving the competitive position of its industry. Black-and-white solutions are unlikely to be successful in the European context. Emulating the US approach of systematically shutting out Chinese technology would likely set back the energy transition and therefore impose higher costs on the EU economy. It would also be more costly for Europe to trigger reciprocal tariffs: more than a third of the EU’s manufacturing GDP is absorbed outside the EU, compared with only around a fifth for the USv. However, a laissez-faire approach is also unlikely to succeed in Europe given the threat it could pose to employment, productivity and economic security. According to ECB simulations, if the Chinese EV industry were to follow a similar trajectory of subsidies to that applied in the solar PV industry, EU domestic production of EVs would decline by 70% and EU producers’ global market share would fall by 30 percentage pointsvi. The automotive industry alone employs, directly and indirectly, almost 14 million Europeans. Given Europe’s strong position in clean tech innovation, it could also lose the possibility to benefit from the future productivity gains this sector will bring. Without some foothold in EIIs, Europe’s economic security could be undermined, for example via lower food security (lack of fertilisers and pesticides) and less autonomy for the defence sector. Most importantly, the “European Green Deal” was premised on the creation of new green jobs, so its political sustainability could be endangered if decarbonisation leads instead to de-industrialisation in Europe – including of industries that can support the green transition.
Europe will need to deploy a mixed strategy that combines different policy tools and approaches for different industries. Four different broad cases can be distinguished. First, there are some industries where Europe’s cost disadvantage is too large to be a serious competitor. Even if the EU has lost ground owing to foreign subsidies, it makes economic sense to import necessary technology and allow foreign taxpayers to bear the costs, while diversifying suppliers to the extent possible to limit dependencies. The second broad case is industries where the EU is concerned about where production takes place – to protect jobs from unfair competition – but is agnostic about where the underlying technology originates from. In this case, an effective policy mix would be to encourage inward FDI while deploying trade measures to offset the cost advantage gained by foreign subsidies. With the combination of recent tariff increases and FDI announcements in some Member States, this approach is currently being de facto applied in the automotive sector. The third case is industries where the EU has a strategic interest in ensuring that European companies retain relevant know-how and manufacturing capacity, allowing production to be ramped up in the event of geopolitical tensions. Here the EU should aim to increase the long-term “bankability” of new investments in Europe, for instance by applying local-content requirements, and to ensure a minimum level of technological sovereignty. The latter can be achieved by requiring foreign companies that want to produce in Europe to enter into joint ventures with local companies. Security considerations may lead to changes over time in the classification of industries of strategic interest. The fourth case is “infant industries” where the EU has an innovative edge and sees high future growth potential. In this case, there is a well-established playbook of applying a full range of trade-distorting measures until the industry reaches sufficient scale and protections can be withdrawn.
Executing this strategy will require a joint decarbonisation and competitiveness plan where all policies are aligned behind the EU’s objectives. Priority areas to be addressed include, first, lowering energy costs for end users by transferring the benefits of the decarbonisation and accelerating the decarbonisation of the energy sector in a cost-efficient way, leveraging all available solutions. Second, capturing the industrial opportunities presented by the green transition, ranging from remaining at the forefront of clean tech innovation to manufacturing clean tech at scale to leveraging the opportunities from circularity. Third, levelling the playing field in sectors more exposed to unfair competition from abroad and/or facing more exacting decarbonisation targets than their international competitors – including applying tariffs and other trade measures where warranted”.
The root cause of high energy prices
“Structural causes are at the heart of the energy price gap and may be exacerbated by both old and new challenges [see the chapter on energy]. The price differential vis-à-vis the US is primarily driven by Europe’s lack of natural resources, as well as by Europe’s limited collective bargaining power despite being the world’s largest buyer of natural gas. However, the gap is also caused by fundamental issues with the EU’s energy market. Infrastructure investment is slow and suboptimal, both for renewables and grids. Market rules prevent industries and households from capturing the full benefits of clean energy in their bills. Financial and behavioural aspects of derivative markets have driven higher price volatility. Higher energy taxation than other parts of the world adds a tax wedge to prices. Moreover, while these structural issues have been exacerbated by the energy crisis of the past two years, future crises may bring them to the fore again. Tensions in gas markets are expected to ease thanks to new global supply capacity coming online, but the EU energy system will have to cope with electrification and new security of supply needs.
The EU is the largest global gas and LNG importer, yet its potential collective bargaining power is not being sufficiently leveraged and relies excessively on spot prices, threatening Europe with more volatile natural gas prices01. This lack of leverage is notable especially in the case of pipeline gas, where the possibility of rerouting gas flows is more limited as shown by the latest unsuccessful efforts by Russia. During the 2022 crisis, for example, intra-EU competition for natural gas between actors willing to pay high prices contributed to an excessive and unnecessary rise in prices. In response, the EU introduced a coordination mechanism to aggregate and match demand with competitive supply offers (AggregateEU), but there is no obligation for joint purchasing on the platform. At the same time, although natural gas prices have fallen considerably from their peaks during the energy crisis, the EU faces an increasingly volatile outlook. With the loss of access to Russian pipeline gas, 42% of EU gas imports arrived as LNG in 2023, up from 20% in 2021. LNG prices are typically higher than pipeline gas on spot markets owing to liquification and transportation costs. Moreover, with the reduction of pipeline supply from Russia, more gas is being bought on LNG spot markets both in the EU and globally leading to stronger competition. Even gas bought in long-term contracts is largely indexed to spot markets, which are increasingly influenced by supply disruptions and demand patterns in Asia.
Financial and behavioural aspects of gas derivative markets can exacerbate this volatility and amplify the impact of shocks. A few non-financial corporates undertake most trading activity in European gas markets. Recent evidence presented by the European Securities Markets Agency (ESMA) suggests that there is significant concentration both at position and trading venue level and that concentration increased in 2022 during largest spike in natural gas prices. The top 5 companies hold around 60% of positions in some trading venues and their short positions increased considerably by almost 200% between February and November 2022 [see Figure 4]vii. Supervision of these companies’ activities could be improved. While regulated financial entities (for example, investment banks, investment funds and clearing market participants) are covered by conduct and prudential rules, many of the companies that trade commodity derivatives can rely on exemptions. In particular, when a commodity company’s main activities are not trading, they can be exempted from authorisation as a supervised investment company (so-called “ancillary” exemptions). The US has a stricter approach. Exemptions apply on some types of contracts, but commodity companies are not exempted from supervision, allowing for a more precise level of scrutiny. In addition, energy commodities are subject to position limits, including Henry Hub natural gas contracts.
Europe’s market rules pass on this volatility to end users and may prevent the full benefits of decarbonising power generation from reaching them. Even as Europe reduces its dependence on natural gas and increases investment in clean energy generation, its market rules in the power sector do not fully decouple the price of renewable and nuclear energy from higher and more volatile fossil fuel prices, preventing end users from capturing the full benefits of clean energy in their bills [see Figure 5]. In 2022 at the peak of the energy crisis, natural gas was the price-setter 63% of the time, despite making up only 20% share of the EU’s electricity mix. The use of long-term contract solutions – like Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) markets or Contracts for Difference (CfDs) – can help attenuate the link between the marginal price setter and the cost of energy for end users, but such solutions are underdeveloped in Europe, in turn limiting the benefits from accelerating the roll-out of renewables. In the absence of action, this decoupling problem will remain acute at least for the remainder of this decade. Even if renewable installation targets are met, it is not forecast to significantly reduce the share of hours during which fossil fuels set energy prices by 2030.
A lengthy and uncertain permitting process for new power supply and grids is a major obstacle to faster installation of new capacity. Investments in both power generation and grids require several years between feasibility studies and project completion. However, there is a large variation in permitting times between Member States. The entire permit granting process for onshore wind farms can take up to 9 years in some Member States, compared with under 3 years in the most efficient ones. Ground-mounted solar PV systems can take 3-4 years to approve in some countries but 1 year in others. The time devoted to analyses of environmental impacts represents a significant share of the difference between best and worst performers. The EU has developed initiatives to shorten permitting (such as the Article 122 emergency proposals), but there are still significant hurdles to implementation, in particular lack of administrative capacity and digitalisation. 69% of municipalities report a lack of skills related to environmental and climate assessments.
Finally, over time energy taxation has become an important source of budget revenues, contributing to higher retail prices. While taxation can be a policy tool to encourage decarbonisation, significant variation exists among Member States concerning taxes and price relief schemes. In contrast to the EU, the US does not levy any federal taxes on electricity or natural gas consumption. Moreover, as power generation falls under the scope of the EU’s ETS, its carbon intensity is priced in electricity generation costs. This cost is high and volatile in the EU (amounting to EUR 20-25/MWh for gas-fired generation in EU), while in California the same cost stands at around EUR 10-15/MWh. Excluding the CO₂ costs paid by producers (which are estimated to lie in the range of 15-20% the commodity costs in 2022), generation cost is in the range of 45% for households and 65% of industrial retail prices. The residual costs were approximately equally shared between the network and taxes”.
