Europe's leading manufacturing lobby group warned on March 13 that a lack of co-ordinated action on energy competition was putting the region's economy at risk. "The uncertainty over energy prices and supply means lower investment will have a serious impact on Europe's industrial performance," said Leif Johansson, chairman of AstraZeneca and Ericsson, and head of the European Round Table of Industrialists.
At a meeting of the group in Brussels, he said: "We need a European energy policy and a single European regulator", according to a report by the "Financial Times”. Mr Johansson argued that the development of a European "smart grid" should be a priority for EU member states.
Energy prices in Europe have soared above those in the US, where the shale oil and gas boom has led to a sharp decline in natural gas prices. At a recent meeting with Angela Merkel, German chancellor; Francois Hollande, French president; and Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, Mr Johansson said the ERT had made 73 recommendations for action to improve Europe's industrial competitiveness, of which 10 focused on energy. "Energy was the highest up on that list of recommendations," he said.
Benoit Potier, chief executive of France's Air Liquide, and vice-chairman of the ERT, said designing a European energy policy was complicated by the plethora of EU institutions involved. "It is not helpful at the European Commission governance level that there are separate commissioners for energy, for the environment and for climate change," Mr Potier said. "Europe needs to think with one mind on energy." Mr Potier said the absence of a clear strategy was leading to counterproductive outcomes, such as increased imports of US coal. "Europe needs to increase, not decrease, its dependency on natural gas," he said. "We should promote the exploration and exploitation of shale gas." The ERT also argued that the EU's carbon emissions trading system - even after the implementation of proposed reforms - was not fit for purpose.
"We all recognise that the ETS doesn't work," said Mr Potier. "We have never taken a long-term investment decision based on CO2 because its cost is too volatile. The proposed reform is a fix to a system that doesn't work." He added that a tax on carbon emissions was not an alternative recommended by the ERT. Nils Andersen, vice-chairman of the ERT and chief executive of Denmark's AP Moller-Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company, said that even though the ETS did not work satisfactorily, industrial companies were very focused on improving energy efficiency, in part to reduce costs.
AP Moller-Maersk recently launched the world's largest container ship, the Triple E, which is designed to operate at low speed to save fuel. The ERT comprises 50 chief executives and chairmen of Europe's leading companies in the industrial and technological sectors. ERT members' companies have a combined turnover of €1.3tn and employ nearly 7m people.
