You don’t have to be very experienced in real international politics to realize that the summit that took place this week regarding the economic and energy future of the European Union was not exactly the meeting in Barcelona, but the one that the French president , Emmanuel Macron, has celebrated this weekend in Paris with his German counterpart, Olaf Scholz, in a show of understanding that, until now, has always been in question. Barcelona, Paris, Meloni in Algeria… all the European leaders are making a move on the energy board, which is now called to be the great point of union of the Eurozone.
Barely a year ago, with Russian tanks and missiles lashing Ukraine and the price of gas through the roof, in this same forum the creation of a true European Energy Union was pointed out as an obligatory solution to the European crisis in the medium and long term. There have been many turns, meetings and disagreements, from the Iberian exception and the French nuclear deterioration, to the German race to build regasification plants or the Italian one for Algeria, but bet that process seems completely inevitable now and the reform of the European market, still embryonic , you should not fall short of aiming for that achievement. If Putin’s best weapon on Europe is the energy market, that is where the leak must be plugged.
The problem is that these great strategic disquisitions escape us from ordinary mortals, they remain far from the day to day of the worker and the taxpayer, beyond the photos, the big words and the news in the news. As much as the German leader ratifies this Sunday his adherence to the green hydrogen gas pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille, along with Spain, Portugal and France, no one knows if it will be done in ten years or not. What is clear is that more gasoline does not need to pass through the Pyrenees, because France is not interested, but electricity already generated and free of costs, which is what we are sending to the halo market, dominated by a park Nuclear under reconstruction.
One of the keys that does serve to lower the ball onto the field of play and that everyone understands it is industrial development and the investment that will move with the implementation of the so-called ‘Net Zero’, that is, without polluting emissions by 2050, which have been ratified by 139 countries, with the EU ahead. The industry is to blame for a third of all emissions on the planet and its elimination is an opportunity to renew systems and reorganize production in countries that, like Spain, had already turned their backs on industrial investment. This process is employment, it is income, it is consumption and it is the economic engine of societies, an opportunity that is inseparable from the strategy to get out of the energy conflict caused by Russia, for which politicians are asked to have a broad vision that , for the moment it is scarce.
A document recently issued by the World Economic Forum, prepared in collaboration with the multinational Accenture and the prestigious Electric Power Research Institute of the United States (EPRI), analyzed eleven international success stories to reindustrialize areas and countries with the ‘Net Zero’ objective and leaves The way forward is very clear, which, without being a whole, is an important part of the duties that the EU must do to have a true energy union that faces Putin and does not make increases in electricity bills eternal. food, etc… Through the analysis of these strategic ‘clusters’ spread around the world and the disquisitions of the experts recently gathered in Davos, the report highlights three keys to take into account: promoting private initiative and competition , and not limit it from the public side; bet on technology, but take into account its shared application to reach the entire value chain and all sectors and countries, without generating privileges that delay joint development; and designing sustainable and bankable models from the beginning, so that public-private initiatives or the distribution of large aid funds, such as the Next Generation, do not remain short initiatives, not very scalable and poorly used.
Oddly enough, the war in Ukraine and the energy tensions in Europe have meant that the large transnational processes are getting closer every day to the well-being of citizens, and with it, the vote they are going to cast at the polls. The budding energy reform and the unblocking of EU funds in Spain are an inevitable passageway to overcome if we want to stop being the caboose of Europe and, instead of worrying about what is most important for future generations, entertain ourselves in doing Absurd political slights in the street to a Macron who was passing through Barcelona but was thinking about his meeting with Scholz. The problem is distinguishing now, in the middle of an election year and with a government that is on the left and facing the big business leaders of the sector (who are the ones that are at stake in the European game), if the political leaders we have are on the height of the decisions that must be made or they are only looking for an extension until the end of the year of the gas cap so as not to lose votes.
