Posted on 04/09/2013 4:47:51 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Europe is falling dangerously far behind the US in productivity growth and is blighted by crippling energy costs, the pan-EU industry federation has warned.
“Europe doesn’t have an energy policy. It has a climate policy,” said Markus Beyrer, head of BusinessEurope.
Mr Beyrer said the US is running away with the shale energy revolution, leaving Europe’s companies in the dust. Spot gas prices are now four to five times higher in Europe, with grim implications for the chemical industry.
“Shale gas is a game-changer and we need to have a discussion based on the evidence, not based on risks,” Mr Beyrer told The Daily Telegraph. France has imposed a moratorium on shale exploration and few countries have yet to take decisive action.
Mr Beyrer said Europe’s carbon trading scheme is a muddle with “mutually distorting objectives” that drive up energy costs without much benefit for the climate. The latest twist is a switch to coal by EU power companies, playing havoc with CO2 goals.
“Nobody is happy. The US and even China are making more progress with renewable targets than we are,” he said.
Equally worrying, he said, is that Europe is slipping further behind in industrial efficiency, chiefly due to rigid labour markets. “Labour productivity in US manufacturing has increased by 1.8pc since the early 2000s, compared with 0.66pc in the Euro Area,” he added.
The transatlantic gap in economic growth reached 2.6pc last year after eurozone crashed back into recession, the highest since 1993. Citigroup expects the gap to widen further to 3.4pc by 2014 as EMU remains stuck in slump, with extreme levels continuing into the latter part of the decade.
This will have profound compound effects. Euroland’s overall GDP will slip from 78pc of US levels to 66pc by 2025. “We expect
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Fortunately, Britain has recently lifted the ban on shale fracking and can now start getting on with exploiting this wonderful new resource.
And once we finally manage to detach ourselves from the rotting corpse of the EU, Britain may yet be great again...
Beans on toast. Hah. No way, tad. You’re done and we’re on the way.
Eat more Vegemite.
.....blighted by energy costs’. Welcome to Ontario.
Let Europe - ESPECIALLY FRANCE - freeze in the dark.
How.
The EU was formed to compete with the US. Unlike the Soviets the EU attacks us with a 5th column called agents of liberalism that infests our culture, academia, public education, and elites. Gay marriage, anti gun, anti religion, global warming, etc etc etc all started in EU and brought over by their agents. EU cannot give up their socialism without a popular political revolt in their voters who are used to the free stuff, so the leaders of the EU chose another way to compete, force the superior competitor to accept their way of doing business via international laws and UN. If the US had the same cumbersome rules and entitlements as EU, at least the US cannot pull away as the economic leader and dominant power. Rather these rules will hamper and reduce the US to EU level of power. The EU will appeal to the US as your white ancestors and we share a common heritage, please take us among you. At least the Soviets were more honest about destroying us, the EU is another story. The EU will just fund more anti fracking movies and pay anarchists to wreck havoc on the streets and in the courts.
"Europe doesn’t have an energy policy. It has a climate policy," said Markus Beyrer, head of BusinessEurope.
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