Posted Sep 29, 2022, 10:27 AM
On May 18, 2022, the European Commission presented the ‘RePowerEU’ plan to the press. A device with a budget of 300 billion euros aimed at developing the energy autonomy of the European Union by making it less dependent on Russian fossil fuel imports and by promoting the production of renewable energies.
In fact, energy autonomy is a major strategic and ecological issue. But it can only fully bear fruit if it is accompanied by a reindustrialisation of the Old Continent.
A common plan
While the RePowerEU plan is an immediate response to the Ukrainian crisis and the turbulence it is causing on the energy market, it is part of a longer-term effort dictated by ecological needs and the coordination required between the EU.
How could the European Union achieve its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets without exercising direct control over the production of the energy it consumes and without reducing its consumption of imported fossil fuels?
In this sense, the strategic and ecological interests of the Community countries are largely aligned. This is why a common plan could be put together so quickly to put ambitious measures in place: increase in biomethane production capacity, diversification of non-EU suppliers, approval of the first hydrogen production projects, joint purchases of gas and hydrogen through the EU energy platform, etc.
Energy autonomy is not enough
This particularly ambitious plan is therefore good news for Europeans affected by energy inflation and for the climate. But to bear full fruit in ecological terms, energy autonomy is not enough: relative industrial independence is also essential.
We know that one third of the European Union’s carbon footprint is due to its imports*. How to decarbonize the European economy while remaining dependent on exporting countries whose climate policy remains uncertain?
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the question of European reindustrialization has been raised by many political and economic institutions. It was thus approached as an element of resilience in the face of health crises and their deleterious consequences on supply chains.
Independence tools
But in the age of Industry 4.0, relocating industry is also an ecological issue of the utmost importance. Europe has the opportunity to develop on its territory a productive system that is efficient, flexible, resilient, but also and above all low in energy.
In this context, all efforts towards greater European industrial independence are therefore not only tools for independence vis-à-vis exporting countries, particularly in Asia, but also important steps towards ecological transition. and the decarbonization of the economy.
Industry of the future
In some sectors affected by shortages, such as semiconductors, these efforts could also pay off in the short term. In February 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal aimed at reducing the dependence of member countries in this area: 90 to 100 billion euros would be invested by 2030.
An initiative reconciling economic, strategic and ecological interests that now needs to be replicated in other industrial sectors to put the industry of the future at the service of the ecological transition.
* Insee Analyses, No. 74, July 2022
