I have just been reading how #Germany chemical giant #BASF has been moving its fertiliser production to #China and USA, while #Poland “Azoty” Group is struggling financially with fertilisers imports from… #Russia, who keeps them dirt cheap thanks to state subsidies.

I think this perfectly illustrates a specific form of economic suicide practised by the EU for many years. The embargo on Russian fertilisers in the EU is now being blocked by… #Hungary. Poland is instead lobbying for customs import tariffs and in theory Germany should be its ally here, except BASF has already moved its production out of EU.

The same is now going through with European battery or heat pump manufacturers, while European PV production has long since moved out.

European policy on economy vs environment is bipolar and one gets the impression that the two lobbies are operating in an entire factual isolation from each other.

The ‘environmental fortress’ has dug in to its positions and continues to push ‘ambitious’ emission reduction policies by any means - including those that globally don’t work. Just because emissions in accounting terms ‘disappear’ from the EU does not mean that they have been eliminated globally if they reappear in China - the atmosphere is perfectly indifferent to where specifically CO2 is emitted.

And the transfer of carbon-intensive production (e.g. PV) from the EU to China leads to a net drastic increase in global emissions due to low environmental standards in China, coal power plus long distance transport.

The ‘economic fortress’ reacts to this in the only way available, i.e. by increasing imports - and this literally kills production inside the EU, i.e. exacerbates the aforementioned phenomenon.

The thing is that the imports are a form of compromise with the ‘environmental fortress’, which agrees to them because ‘what you can’t see, you don’t feel sorry for’. Every closed factory or mine in the EU is a ‘victory’ for them (never mind that it reappers in China, that’s ‘elsewhere’), and on top of that, production from China is cheap, which fits the ‘environmental’ narrative of ‘cheap renewables’.

And yes, they are cheap because they are produced in a totalitarian country with no respect for labour rights, environmental protection and with high-carbon energy. Added to this is the long-term cost of monopoly, as China already controls 80% of the global PV supply chain - not just manufacturing! Anyone opening a new PV factory still depends on Chinese raw materials.

And yes, this also applies to the USA, which - as one Polish activist recently argued to me - ‘became independent within a few years without a problem’, supposedly proving that the Chinese monopoly is not a problem.

And here we have another example of the bipolarity of the ‘environmental stronghold’, because everything the US has been doing in recent years in order to increase competitiveness - pragmatism in terms of reducing emissions and import tariffs - is perfectly opposite to what the EU is doing.

@kravietz Seems like it's in part a case of "perfect is the enemy of good" (though the "perfect" here is entirely opinionated (not mine)) and the EU moving extremely slowly. Afaik starting 2027 a new border CO2 compensation regime starts being phased in, with a full rollout bi mid 30s. As in imports get taxed based on difference of CO2 emmissions within EU and the place of origin. Which in principle for a global free market ideology (which afaik most of EU is based on) is better than flat tarifs, as it still allows production where it is most effective, while leveling the "climate-cost-playing-ground". Just absolutely ridiculous how late it comes into play. Plus I am sure if you look closer, you'll find loopholes abound and overall way too low climate cost estimates. Plus all the non-climate related things you mention aren't covered. So yeah maybe it's better described as "the right intention might actually be there, execution is just botched up massively". Does that make any sense or am I entirely besides the topic here?