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Europe must accept higher short-term costs to reduce its dependence on China for clean-energy technologies, EU Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has told Euronews, warning that delaying action will make the strategic vulnerability harder and more expensive to unwind.
The EU should have confronted its reliance on China “five to ten years ago”, Hoekstra said, arguing that waiting longer would bring greater disruption and costs.
“But it will be much cheaper and much more to our advantage to do it now than be wishy washy and wait another five to 10 years,” the Dutch Commissioner said.
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“This will stay with us for years to come, because the dependencies in many domains have simply become too large,” he said, describing the situation as a “dangerous and uncomfortable” vulnerability for both Europe’s climate ambitions and economic security.
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Tensions [between the EU and China] have intensified as Brussels has taken measures to protect the European market, targeting Chinese companies over issues including illegal products, state subsidies and foreign investment. Beijing has threatened retaliation.
Hoekstra pointed to Europe’s solar industry as a warning of what can happen when domestic production loses out to heavily subsidised Chinese imports.
But the Commissioner went further, raising concerns about alleged Chinese interference and security risks involving critical infrastructure in Europe.
“Kill switches are being included in windmills. Espionage happens at a very high degree on European soil. Intellectual property theft in our most advanced companies happens on a weekly basis and on and on and on — that is something no government and the EU can simply allow,” he said.
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The goal is … to ensure that Europe is no longer vulnerable to a single external supplier for technologies critical to its energy transition.
The challenge, Hoekstra said, is to build European capacity now — even if doing so comes with higher costs in the short term.
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Hell yea. EU independence and strength is a lynchpin in the scenario where democracy keeps going for awhile
This fear mongoring BS about kill switches and especially the Dutch keep adding to anti China propaganda because of how deep they are in Trump’s anus - ASML and the Nexperia disaster anyone - is disturbing.
This is from the country where you can’t get any new green devices such as heatpumps installed for a number of years because no one invested in the power infrastructure.
The same country that introduced kilometer tax for combustion trucks which make up 98% of trucks, to encourage to move to electric ones. However to install a new charger at the trucking company itself, will take 7 years!
The Netherlands should shut the fuck up about China and see what that country has achieved in regards to green energy and power infrastructure compared to just bitching and moaning.
He’s just pushing agenda that have nothing to do with security or sovereignty. Clean energy gives people freedom and independence, especially energy storage and that’s why they’re trying to prevent this by artificially increasing prices. So called kill switches can be removed or just ignored because those are just software solutions that can only work by exposing windmill turbine to the public internet. This is also how you prevent windmill from being destroyed with higher wind speed. This guy don’t know the basics of how renewable technology works or is just manipulating facts to push control.
https://www.alternative-energies.net/why-do-wind-turbines-stop-in-high-winds/
How is working with China more dangerous than working with the USA?
building solar panel factories in europe would take 20 years. we don’t have that much time.
i can agree with import bans on windmills though, we already can produce these well enough.
It’s not like we had world-class solar panel factories in europe like 15 years ago, right? /s
i actually looked that up a while ago, the factories in germany were very competent, the panels they produced cost only 30% more than those from china. that’s astonishingly good considering that lots of other products had more price difference than that.
This is not the first time Europeans are told to suffer higher costs of living for the sake of some ideals. And still, here we are, with those ideals nowhere near realized, costs of living growing to insane levels, and our basic rights at risk more than ever before.
What is this really about? If anybody in the EU seriously cared about principles, the EU would have never purchased Russian gas. And yet it still does, despite its own sanctions, through middlemen. Just like it still does a lot of business with the US, indirectly fueling several genocides at any given moment.
The EU should have confronted its reliance on China “five to ten years ago”
The EU should have never closed its factories and outsourced everything to cheap, third world countries. Alas, it was profitable, and in capitalism only profit matters. If only there was anything we could do about this…
Additionally, the EU should have confronted its reliance on the US as soon as the treaty of Maastricht was signed. And yet, nothing. Only more ‘agreements’ that greatly favour American interests, and put the entire EU at further risk.
Tensions [between the EU and China] have intensified as Brussels has taken measures to protect the European market, targeting Chinese companies over issues including illegal products, state subsidies and foreign investment.
I don’t usually hate on the EU this much, but this is just Western imperialism. When the country is weak and the labour is cheap - all good, no problems. When it suddenly grows stronger - problem. It’s like we just can’t stop taking advantage of poorer countries, and then crying when they miraculously manage to win against all odds. Come on guys, colonialism supposedly ended over 100 years ago.
Also, if the entire EU stops buying Chinese solar panels… who exactly is it gonna buy them from? China produces 90% of the world’s solar panels. Either we buy Chinese or we miss the climate goals by even more, because nobody else produces these devices. Unless they started growing on trees and I missed it.
I’m sorry, but this just looks like the EU once again doing the US Empire’s bidding.
I’m sorry, but this just looks like the EU once again doing the US Empire’s bidding.
I agree, but
Come on guys, colonialism supposedly ended over 100 years ago.
Colonialism ended after WW2, with the help of the US who didn’t want other empires next to itself.
Slavery ended earlier.
Colonialism did not end after WW2. Especially the Soviet Union had a very large colonial empire. Partly inheriting the old Russian one, but the satellite states in the Warsaw Pact were basically protectorates. There are other examples like Indonesia in Papua or the weird quasi settler colonialism of Israel. Plenty of countries are currently trying to be more colonial masters. The US actions under Trump are fairly openly colonialist. Turkey is moving into northern Syria, Libya and Somalia for more influence in those parts of the world.
Oh and slavery is also still around. Not in the form of chattel slavery, although that is happening in Libya and Mauretania illegally as well, but in other form.
Portugal also retained their colonies in southern Africa well into the 1970ties.
True. I got carried away with the 100 years.
Though it looks like the dates matter little, since both are unfortunately still very much around.
There are certainly some strategic parts where this is correct, but for the most part it will not be possible to catch up to the Chinese over-capacity of some of the well established technologies like silicon waver based solar-panels and we should rather be happy that the Chinese are willing to subsidize our energy transition (despite us botching it earlier).
We should rather invest into new technologies that are promising and make sure the Chinese are not overtaking us in those technologies as well.
It is not needed to catch up, but to have the skills to actually make for example solar panels, if the Chinese are unwilling to deliver. Most of that last for decades. If you have the skills and only need to increase production, that is not that much of a dependence. If you need to develop all of that from scratch, then it really is one.
There are multiple promising new technologies to make solar panels. The EU should rather invest in those and benefit from cheap Chinese solar panels using the old technology in the mean time.
We should rather invest into new technologies that are promising and make sure the Chinese are not overtaking us in those technologies as well.
China is a billion people, the EU is half of that. Whatever we choose, China can spend the same amount of brainpower.
There are two ways to prevent them from overtaking us. Either we isolate them or we crush them.
There are plenty of technological areas where the EU is more advanced than China, this isn’t a simple numbers game like you think 🤷
Why not? Like chip manufacturing, China can dedicate resources until they are competible. All high profit industries will see competitors.
The EU can also dedicate resources to stay ahead. It isn’t only a question of the mystical man-hour. And competition is no problem when you start from a somewhat equal base. But it makes no sense to try to catch up in an area where the technology is solved and the competition has massive over-capacity.
Or ally with them
How? I think that’s the best option but I doubt that the western elite would go along.
Wish I knew :(
Somebody voted you down. The aversion is prepared for a war.
Same as with the weakening actions against climate warming, yes?
China is a bully.
