Year LXIV, 2022, Single Issue, Page 64
EUROPE’S THIRD CRISIS OF THE SECOND MILLENNIUM:
FROM THE “PARALLEL WAR”
TO THE EXISTENTIAL CHALLENGE FACING
THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY
Introduction.
There can be no denying that the globalised world that took shape from the 1980s onwards has found itself sorely tested in the first twenty or so years of the new millennium.
We are all part of a global village in which the financial, economic and health crises of one country have rapid and irreversible knock-on effects on the others; it should therefore come as no surprise that recent years have seen the development of serious crises, three to be precise, which have affected all the various continents, Europe in particular.
The first was the financial and then economic and social crisis that exploded in the USA in 2007-8 and lasted, in Europe, until 2014, seriously hitting Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, to the point of putting these countries at risk of default.
The second was the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw the outbreak of the disease rapidly and dramatically spreading from the initial epicentre of the pandemic in Wuhan to become, throughout 2020 and 2021, a dramatic global problem. It was a shock that quickly turned from a health emergency into an economic crisis (with various supply chain economies paralysed by lockdowns), and also a social one (with the emergence of large swathes of unemployment and new poverty).
The third crisis, of course, is the war triggered by the Kremlin’s despicable armed attempt to take control of the whole of Ukrainian territory and thus reach the borders of the European Union.
2020-2021: Crisis and Recovery.
The Covid-19 pandemic has left our continent deeply scarred, primarily because Europe had the highest infection rates, but also because of its severe economic and commercial repercussions, linked to the weakening and even suspension of international manufacturing supply chains. In 2020, both the euro area and the EU recorded dips in GDP: -6.4 per cent and -5.9 per cent, respectively. In the EU, unemployment topped 16 million, mainly affecting women and young people.
In the same year, Italy’s GDP plummeted (-8.9 per cent) and its production and employment system was shaken to its foundations, with 45 per cent of companies facing structural risk and 800,000 fewer on the payroll compared with pre-Covid.
It is thanks to the suspension of the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact and above all to the solidarity between European countries, as well as the huge financial resources mobilised by the ECB and the European Commission (through the Pan-European Guarantee Fund, ESM, SURE programme, Next Generation EU instrument, and so on) that Italy, too, managed to address the health-economic-social crisis and embark on the path of recovery.
And this recovery proved so resilient that, at the end of 2021, Italy saw its GDP recording an increase of 6.3 per cent (versus +5.3 per cent for the rest of the eurozone), and the OECD even picked it out as the new economic “driving force” of Europe. The Economist named Italy its “country of the year” for 2021, a recognition awarded “not for the prowess of its footballers, who won Europe’s big trophy, nor its pop stars, who won the Eurovision Song Contest,” but for the fact that its economy was faring better than those of France and Germany. The prime minister at the time was Mario Draghi.
2022: the Outbreak of the Third Crisis.
On 24 February 2022 there began, in Europe, a crisis the like of which had not been seen for around 80 years: a “humanitarian, security, energy [and] economic crisis” right at the heart of the continent. Against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict, the words uttered by prime minister Draghi shortly after its start (“we are definitely not in a wartime economy, but we have to prepare”) have quickly turned into a stark reality.[1]
Alongside the war on the ground there has unfolded a “parallel war” involving “economic deterrence” in the form of financial, economic and individual sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU and other countries (as a reaction to its aggression against a sovereign and democratic country, and also as a means of hastening an end to the conflict by weakening Russia’s war machine) and “economic resistance”, as the EU countries face (among other measures) energy shortages imposed in retaliation by the Kremlin.
The words of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are very significant in this regard: “Putin has mobilised his armed forces to wipe out Ukraine from the map. We have mobilised our unique economic power to protect Ukraine. This is also a new chapter in our Union’s history — a new way of putting economic power to counter military power and military aggression, and to defend our most cherished European values.”[2]
It must be borne in mind that this war is not the only factor behind the current economic crisis; in fact, the conflict has turned out to be — together with its consequences — a powerful accelerator of a world economic situation that was already in the making even before it broke out, as some commentators noted as early as 2017.[3]
Essentially, this acceleration of the crisis is due to the energy war that the Kremlin started, in retaliation, against Western Europe, well aware of the latter’s dependence on Russian oil (for 27 per cent of its supplies) and, above all, Russian gas (for about 40 per cent); this dependence is particularly great in the cases of Italy and Germany, which prior to the energy war obtained nearly half of their gas from Gazprom, and Slovakia, Latvia and the Czech Republic, which depended entirely on this source. During the first nine months of 2022, the EU’s deficit in energy trade with Russia amounted to 491.4 billion euros compared with 179.6 billion the previous year.
The predicament of Germany, Europe’s leading economy, which, having tied itself to Russia for its energy supplies, finds itself hugely exposed and vulnerable to threats, provides a striking illustration of the gravity of the crisis in which EU countries find themselves. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admitted as much, warning that a gas embargo leading to “the loss of millions of jobs and of factories that would never open again (…) would have major consequences for our country (…) We cannot allow that to happen.”[4] His words were echoed by German industrialists and trade unions: an oil and gas embargo could push inflation into double figures, which would be a nightmare scenario for the Germans, as it would be the first time since the Second World War.
Europe, much more than the other countries active on the “economic deterrence” front, is in the midst of its third crisis of this new millennium, a completely different shock from the previous two because it constitutes a historic watershed, with political, economic and strategic implications that, for the sake of Europe’s very future, demand a change in perspective.
Russia’s retaliation — its progressive reduction of oil and gas supplies, and threat to cut them off altogether as winter approaches, as well as its exponentially rising energy prices — will clearly impact the countries of the EU in various ways, pushing up production costs for businesses, further slowing down production chains, causing inflation to soar and consumption to contract, and leading to more widespread social distress and greater recourse to public spending. This, with the situation likely to gather pace, could jeopardise the stability of the European economy and the social sustainability of European countries.
Economic data from Italy can be taken as an example to illustrate this point: in October 2022 inflation stood at +11.8 per cent (the highest level since 1984; moreover, in 2019 it had been just +0.6 per cent, leading to talk of “deflation” and falling prices), while the cost of groceries had risen to +13.1 per cent. In Italy, the resources set aside for dealing with rising energy prices in 2022 stand at around 60 billion, almost double what Spain has allocated.
And while the data for the third quarter of 2022 offer some comfort, showing the Italian economy recording a 0.5 per cent increase and thus its seventh consecutive quarter with positive GDP growth, a trend attributable to the recovery of tourism (+75 per cent), the industrial and agricultural sectors, both down on the second quarter, continue to require careful monitoring. That fears are centred above all on 2023 was borne out by Bank of Italy governor Ignazio Visco’s talk of “great uncertainty” and a need for caution dictated by “the danger that the deterioration in the economic outlook may prove worse than expected”. This “uncertainty” is reflected in Confindustria’s Congiuntura flash bulletin of 6 November: “in the 4th quarter there is the risk of a decline: the qualitative indicators, overall, are negative; the price of gas has remained high, for too many months; the resulting inflation (+11.8 per cent annually) is eroding household incomes and savings and will have a negative impact on consumption; and the rise in interest rates is becoming more pronounced, further increasing business costs.”[5]
The Energy War: an Existential Threat for European Industry.
At the 23 October meeting of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), there was clearly great concern about high energy prices and about the weakening, and even reduction, of raw material supply chains, factors that are eating away the foundations of European industry’s global competitiveness and undermining its ability to achieve bold decarbonisation goals.
European industries are being so badly hit by soaring energy costs that they are cutting or shutting down production and losing global market shares, with the risk of permanent damage to the EU’s competitiveness. What is more, with manufacturers scaling back, shutting down or relocating production, there is also a risk that they may never reopen in Europe, even in sectors crucial to the energy transition such as metals.
According to a recent analysis by the Economist Intelligence Unit, “Demand reduction is forcing industry across Europe to idle, and will raise input costs to levels that make European industry uncompetitive. This may persist for several years, causing global supply chains to move away from Europe.”[6]
Particularly indicative, in this regard, is the joint statement by Confindustria (the General Confederation of Italian Industry) and its French counterpart Medef pointing out that production costs in industry increased by 28 per cent in France, 40 pe cent in Italy, and 33per cent in the EU between August 2021 and August 2022, and that European producers of fertilisers and aluminium have reduced their production by 70 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. These figures show that the coming winter will see a very high risk of falling production capacity, with the closure of thousands of companies, and of declining competitiveness and job losses, as well as relocations by energy-intensive industrial concerns.[7]
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has spoken explicitly of the risk of a “deindustrialisation” of Europe, warning that the energy crisis is the greatest threat hanging over Europe since the end of the Second World War, on an economic level, primarily, but also on a political and social one (10 October 2022).
Focus on Industrial Enterprises: is Italian Industry at Risk?
As previously noted, the Italian production system proved particularly reactive and dynamic during 2021 and also much of 2022, even though in the course of the latter considerable concern was raised about the effects, especially starting from the first months of 2023, of the “energy war”.
As reported on 27 April 2022 by Cerved Business Information, which keeps an Italian chambers of commerce database, there are a number of factors that could potentially block production in numerous sectors in 2023: the volatile international situation, the substantial increases in raw material prices, as well as the uncontrolled increase in energy costs and unavailability of materials, leading to higher purchase prices. Italy’s industrial production system risks losing as much as 218 billion euros in revenues, as the country’s economy minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, was well aware when, addressing a joint meeting of the Budget Committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic on the proposed budget law, he remarked: “Our economy is slowing down and we are seeing a sharp rise in inflation. The soaring cost of energy is threatening the survival of our businesses, and not just the energy ones.”[8]
Businesses Appeal to the European Union.
At this point, let it immediately be said that, while the EU has done an admirable amount on the “economic deterrence” front, with the aim of weakening Russia’s war machine and creating the conditions for delegitimising the autarch Putin, the support it has lent to “economic resistance” efforts has not, so far, been as satisfactory. That said, on a more positive note, we should recall the financial aid that the Commission has put in place within the sphere of its competences, specifically:
– the REPowerEU plan (based on “energy savings, diversification of energy supplies, and accelerated roll-out of renewable energy”).[9] Designed to help the 27 member countries phase out, as quickly as possible, their dependence on Russian fossil fuels, this plan is worth 300 billion euros, which includes 225 billion of unused loans from the bloc’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, with the rest coming from new subsidies, and sums transferred from the cohesion funds (26.9 billion) and CAP funds (7.5 billion);
–the fact that governments have been given the option of reallocating unused cohesion funds (40 billion) from the 2014-2020 budget period, in order to help vulnerable companies and families pay their energy bills.
We have to feel some disappointment, on the other hand, at the lack of a ready common political will and unified strategy among the EU member states. Everything continues to be complicated and slow, frustrated by protracted negotiations conditioned by divergent national interests.
To make this point, there is no need to list single circumstances and facts; one need only consider the frustration of Mario Draghi’s, who apparently claimed that: “We have been discussing gas for seven months. We have spent tens of billions of European taxpayers’ money, used to finance Russia’s war, and we have not solved anything yet. If we hadn’t wasted so much time, we wouldn’t now be on the brink of a recession.”[10]
Given the common reaction of the European countries in the face of the pandemic, and then the solidarity concretely manifested between them, not to mention the proactive role played by the ECB and the European Commission in that “annus horribilis”, we might have been forgiven for believing that the “lesson” had finally been learned, and assimilated as a common value. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
With difficulty and some effort, the Italian premier Draghi, thanks to his authoritativeness, managed to get some European countries, including France, Spain and Poland, to converge on the need to adopt a “package” of measures, and above all introduce a (lower) maximum gas price as a means of supporting businesses and the economy.
In the same vein, Confindustria and Medef recently issued a joint appeal to the European Council, saying that Italian and French companies wished to raise the alarm about the escalation of the energy crisis and underline the urgency of intervening at European level, with immediate effect, to curb prices and avoid further damage to the economy. In their view, urgent European intervention should take the form of temporary measures setting a cap on the price of gas. The appeal ends by warning that there is no time to lose, the survival of European industry is at stake.[11]
Meanwhile, in a press release, the European business confederation BusinessEurope said that “all-sized companies across the continent have already reduced their output or even shut down their production completely. There is a real danger that energy-intensive businesses [will] relocate outside of Europe where energy prices are much lower, which would have dramatic consequences on our competitiveness and jobs”.[12]
These concerns are shared by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, as shown by her words at the European Parliament Plenary in Strasbourg: “High gas prices are driving electricity prices. We have to limit this inflationary impact of gas on electricity — everywhere in Europe. This is why we are ready to discuss a cap on the price of gas that is used to generate electricity (…) Such a cap on gas prices must be designed properly (…) And it is a temporary solution”.[13] On the same occasion, von der Leyen explained that the Commission was also working to obtain the go-ahead to define a process that could be used, in emergency situations, to establish, using a precise criterion, the shares of available gas that the single member states would be entitled to purchase, at a controlled price to avoid bidding between EU countries — an instrument similar to the one used for the distribution of vaccines.
On the eve of the October European Council, the Commission finalised a package of measures to tackle the energy crisis. First of all, the obligation to meet at least 15 per cent of storage-filling requirements through joint gas purchases and higher thresholds for state aid. Second, the possibility of using up to 10 per cent of the cohesion funds in the EU budget for the energy emergency. And finally, a new LNG pricing benchmark. However, since this will not be ready until early 2023, it was proposed to use, in the short term, a price correction mechanism to limit prices on the TTF gas exchange, to be activated as needed.
The European Council, which met on 20-21 October 2022, gave the green light to the agreement on the package, before instructing the energy ministers to draw up the technical details of a road map for its application.
Pending a more precise technical proposal from the Commission, to be submitted to the Council of Energy Ministers for approval, there was general political agreement on the price cap issue. On 22 November, 2022, EU Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, announced that the EU was proposing a gas price cap, on the Amsterdam-based TTF, of 275 euros per megawatt hour. However, this was a proposal that reflected mainly the position of countries, Germany and others, concerned more about maintaining the flow of supplies from Russia than about pushing down the price. After all, it should be considered that the price of gas, even at its peak, has never reached the 275-euro mark, and that at the time the cap was actually formulated, futures for the month of December were trading at less than 120 euros.
The EU energy ministers, meeting on Thursday 24 November, reached an agreement on the substance of the new measures on joint purchases of gas and on a solidarity mechanism. But not on the 275-euro price cap, given that the energy ministers of fifteen countries, including Italy, Spain and France, had decided not to adhere to the European Commission’s proposal. Meanwhile, new warnings arrived from Russia, which threatened to cut gas and oil supplies to any country capping the price of these two raw materials, and the price of gas fluctuated sharply due to the uncertainty surrounding the price cap.
While the countries of the European Union were struggling to agree on what price to pay Russia for gas, and on a common policy for managing the energy crisis, on 25 November in Berlin, France and Germany signed an energy “mutual support” agreement — a move that risks rekindling controversy over the risk of divisions within Europe, given the possible implications for the level playing field.
The French prime minister Elisabeth Borne, in a tweet at the time of the agreement, wrote: “France and Germany need each other to overcome energy tensions. This is the meaning of the solidarity agreement that we have just concluded to implement exchanges of gas and electricity between our two countries and to act within the framework of the EU.”
This situation inevitably begs the question, what about the other 25 EU countries? The difficulties in finding an agreement between the member states are deeply worrying, as indeed is this kind of acceleration on the part of just a small number of countries.
On 2 December 2022, on the basis of a previous G7 decision, the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union announced that a 60-dollar-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil had been agreed and would be implemented as from 5 December 2022; however, no cap on the price of Russian gas had been agreed. A group of seven European Union countries, including Italy, proposed setting one of 160 euros per megawatt hour, far lower than the ceiling proposed by the European Commission (275 euros) and the compromise proposed by the Czech presidency of the Union (264 euros). The turning point came when the European Council, meeting on 15 December, “call[ed] on the Council to finalise on 19 December 2022 its work on the proposals for a Council Regulation enhancing solidarity through better coordination of gas purchases, notably through the EU Energy Platform, exchanges of gas across borders and reliable price benchmarks”.[14] And indeed, the following Monday, Europe’s energy ministers agreed, with a qualified majority — Hungary voted against and Austria and the Netherlands abstained —, to set a gas price cap of 180 euros per megawatt hour, which will kick in on 15 February 2023.
The president of the Lombardy industrialists’ association Assolombarda, Alessandro Spada, cautiously welcomed the agreement: “It is positive that the EU has reached an agreement on the gas price cap, although the price remains very high for businesses. The good news is that the Europeans managed to negotiate an agreement, moreover for a price cap lower than that the Commission had envisaged”.
Is European Industry Headed for the States?
In addition to all that has been outlined thus far, it is necessary to consider what Thierry Breton, EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, has called an “existential challenge to the EU economy”, namely, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) approved in August by the Biden administration as a means of accelerating American industry’s green transition.
This measure has put 369 billion dollars in subsidies and tax breaks on the table. And although it will not come into force until in 2023, it is already leading some European companies to divert investments away from the Old Continent in favour of the USA. Thanks to the IRA, for example, the construction of a new electric battery factory in the States is subsidised by up to 800 million dollars. The same factory in Europe would receive “only” 155 million euros. In the hydrogen sector, too, US subsidies are now five times those available in Europe. Added to this disparity, there is also the difference in energy costs. Natural gas currently costs six times more in Europe than it does in the USA. Due to this asymmetry, the annual increase in production prices is much more marked for European than US companies: +42 per cent vs +8.5per cent. As a result, in the first ten months of 2022, EU industry was forced to ration its use of gas (-13 per cent on the average for the previous three years) and therefore reduce its production. American industry, on the other hand, increased its gas consumption (+5 per cent).
According to a survey by the German Chamber of Commerce, 8 per cent of the German companies interviewed are considering moving part of their production outside the EU, precisely because of the high energy prices in Europe. This is an industrial haemorrhage that Europe simply cannot afford.
The Inflation Reduction Act: the Reactions of and Differences Between EU Member States.
Paris and Berlin are stepping up their pressure on the Commission for a response along the lines of the US subsidy plan.
According to Bloomberg, which cites sources close to the German Chancellery, Olaf Scholz, supporting requests from Germany’s social democrats (SPD), seems to be inclined to urge the European Union to respond to the US subsidy plan with new common financial instruments.[15]
The French government has circulated a detailed document, suggesting the adoption of a four-pillar strategy called “Made in Europe” that highlights, above all, the importance of responding to the need to urgently support and finance the sectors susceptible to relocation, and of defending the solidity of the European economy, its sovereignty, and the green transition. France is asking the EU to present, in the very short term, a credible and ambitious financing instrument to be built in two stages: an emergency fund that would be created by reallocating existing funding, and subsequently (by the end of 2023) supported through an instrument similar to SURE (i.e., financed through common debt). In this way, the industrial crisis would result in the breaking of another taboo.
The Danish politician Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, in a letter on an “urgent matter”, sent to all the governments on 13 January 2023, highlights a number of challenges, particularly “high energy prices, the need to re-skill and up-skill workers, and the US Inflation Reduction Act, which risks luring some of our EU businesses into moving investments to the US”, that together demand “a strong European response”.[16] In the letter she goes on to propose the setting up of a “collective European fund to support countries in a fair and equal way”, while also underlining the importance of relaxing the state aid rules and boosting the REPowerEU plan.
Ursula von der Leyen’s position appears, at present, more cautious; she would like to avoid a transatlantic confrontation, and favours “dialogue” with the Biden administration.
And then there are those that say “no”.
The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, in its response to the consultation launched by the Commission before Christmas, argued that further changes to state aid rules due to the IRA cannot be deemed justified, given that EU member states already provide substantial amounts of state aid and it in any case remains unclear how the IRA will be implemented.[17]
The Spanish government has also come out against upping state aid, arguing that it would constitute “a threat to the level playing field”.
Looking ahead to the European Council meeting of 9 and 10 February, the European Commission, on 1 February, unveiled its “Green Deal Industrial Plan”, a series of proposals and initiatives designed to support and protect the green industry in the EU. It is, in fact, a response to the USA’s IRA and China’s multi-million-dollar energy transition programmes. The new plan aims to relax the state aid rules in order to favour the introduction of renewable energy and the decarbonisation of industrial processes. “We know that in the next years the shape of the net-zero economy and where it is located will be decided, and we want to be an important part of this net-zero industry that we need globally”, said the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen in a statement.[18] But, as we have seen, the plan has not met with the unanimous approval of the member states and industry leaders.
Final Considerations.
Despite the experience of the pandemic and now the current crisis, the EU remains slow to boost its strength and cohesion and become more supportive and ready to actually assume a role of power, notwithstanding the many appeals it has received, from authoritative sources, to do just that. It is therefore hard not to agree with the president of Confindustria, Carlo Bonomi, who says that in the energy field “we in Europe need to pool our efforts and measures, exactly as we have managed to do with sanctions. We cannot be united on sanctions, but leave everyone to go it alone when it comes to energy, (…) solidarity cannot exist for one issue but not the other.”[19]
One thing is for sure: today’s Union is struggling and proving slow to rise to the challenges it faces. Proof of this can be found on the “economic resistance” front of the current war, in the context of which “decisions” that are not taken jointly, or that are drawn out or simply ineffective, risk irreparably undermining the competitiveness of European supply chains and businesses, putting our continent at very real risk of industrial decline.
What is equally certain is the fact that the national governments are failing to exploit the thrust of this further emergency in order to take steps towards the true political unity that would allow Europe, by giving itself the ability, authority and strength necessary to act both internally and on the world stage, to rise to the status of a continental power. It should be clear that Europe, to survive as a Union, has no choice but to take the political-institutional steps that, as confirmed by the Conference on the Future of Europe, have to be taken in order to give the European institutions the competences, resources and effective powers necessary to act in crucial fields — those in which adequate governance is possible only at the European level. And so, we as federalist militants, drawing motivation from the stimulating and impassioned words of David Sassoli at the opening of the Conference on the Future of Europe on 9 May, must, with absolute commitment, “work (…) so that [Europe] functions more coherently; so that Europe has clear competences in the many fields in which our countries, alone, would be marginalised and simply struggle. We see that there are geopolitical actors in the world that attack us and [seek to] take advantage of our divisions to undermine our strength — our great strength that is founded on law, democracy and our values. So, let’s make Europe even stronger, more resilient, more democratic and more united.”
Or as we would put it: let’s create a federal Europe!
Piero Angelo Lazzari
[1] Draghi: “Non siamo in economia di guerra, ma dobbiamo prepararci”, https://video.repubblica.it/dossier/crisi_in_ucraina_la_russia_il_donbass_i_video/draghi-non-siamo-in-economia-di-guerra-ma-dobbiamo-prepararci/410411/411118.
[2] Speech by President von der Leyen on the occasion of the II Cercle d’Economia Award for the European Construction, Barcelona, 6 May 2022, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_22_2878.
[3] F. Martìn, Perché la crescita continua a rallentare? Il Sole 24 ore - Econopoly, 15 February 2017, https://www.econopoly.ilsole24ore.com/2017/02/15/perche-la-crescita-continua-a-rallentare/?refresh_ce=1; F. Daveri, Economia mondiale: torna lo spettro della crisi? ISPI, 27 December 2018: “Per il 2019 il Fondo Monetario si attende un rallentamento: Ma la domanda che si pongono tutti gli osservatori è se il ‘rallentamento’ assumerà lo sgradevole aspetto di una crisi mondiale” (“The Monetary Fund is expecting a slowdown on 2019: but the question on all observers’ lips is whether this ‘slowdown’ will start looking unpleasantly like a global crisis”), ISPI, 27 November 2018, https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/economia-mondiale-torna-lo-spettro-della-crisi-21869; C. Natoli, Outlook OCSE: economia mondiale in rallentamento anche nel 2020 – I rischi per Germania e Italia, https://www.pricepedia.it/it/magazine/article/2019/11/25/outlook-ocse-economia-mondiale-in-rallentamento-anche-nel-2020-i-rischi-per-germania-e-italia/, 25 November 2019); G. Santevecchi, Pil Cina, così Xi Jinping ha fatto rallentare l’economia – E’ un rallentamento annunciato, ma ancor più pronunciato del previsto, quello dell’economia cinese. Rallentamento delle logistiche, Corriere della Sera, 18 October 2021, https://www.corriere.it/economia/finanza/21_ottobre_18/cosi-xi-jinping-ha-fatto-rallentare-l-economia-cinese-26c93746-2fed-11ec-9d51-3a373555935d.shtml.
[4] M. Amman and M. Knobbe, An interview with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, “There Cannot Be a Nuclear War”, Spiegel International, 22 aprile 2022, https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-german-chancellor-olaf-scholz-there-cannot-be-a-nuclear-war-a-d9705006-23c9-4ecc-9268-ded40edf90f9.
[5] Centro Studi Confindustria, Caro energia persistente, inflazione record e rialzo dei tassi, frenano l’economia a fine 2022, November 2022, https://www.confindustriasr.it/comunicazione.asp?id=89&id_news=1478&anno=2022.
[6] Energy crisis will erode Europe’s competitiveness in 2023, 13 October 2022, https://www.eiu.com/n/energy-crisis-will-erode-europe-competitiveness-in-2023/.
[7] Confindustria, Medef e Bdi: subito misure condivise su energia, Energiaoltre, 20 December 2022, https://energiaoltre.it/confindustria-medef-e-bdi-subito-misure-condivise-su-energia/?v=163a1b9b5c5312.
[8] Audizione del ministro Giorgetti sul disegno di legge di bilancio per il triennio 2023-2025 [Commissioni bilancio di Camera e Senato] - ... (mef.gov.it).
[9] European Commission, REPowerEU: A plan to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels and fast forward the green transition, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_3131.
[10] L'Ue ferma l’Italia sul gas, Draghi furioso: “Colpa vostra se siamo in recessione”, Business.it.
[11] Confindustria, Medef e Bdi…, op. cit..
[12] BusinessEurope, Energy crisis: European business calls for new EU-wide measures (press release), https://www.businesseurope.eu/publications/energy-crisis-european-business-calls-new-eu-wide-measures.
[13] U. van der Leyen, Speech by President von der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary on Russia's escalation of its war of aggression against Ukraine, Strasbourg, 5 October 2022, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_22_5964.
[14] General Secretariat of the Council, European Consilium meeting (15 December 2022) – Conclusions,https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/60872/2022-12-15-euco-conclusions-en.pdf.
[15] MilanoFinanza News 12.1.2023.
[16] https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/16/Letter_EVP_Vestager_to_Ministers__Economic_and_Financial_Affairs_Council__Competitiveness_Council_aressv398731.pdf.
[17] S. Disegni, Francia e Germania vogliono un nuovo piano Ue di aiuti all’industria. Ma nel 2022 l’80% delle risorse è finito proprio a loro, Open, 13 January 2023, https://www.open.online/2023/01/13/ue-francia-germania-nuovo-piano-aiuti-industria/.
[18] European Commission, Statement by President von der Leyen on the Green Deal Industrial Plan, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_23_521.
[19] Caro energia, Bonomi: “Da soli non ce la possiamo fare, serve l'Ue” - Adnkronos.com, 5 October 2022.
