Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has come out against European “green” policies, accusing them of causing de-industrialisation.
Speaking on the evening of January 29 at The Future of Europe, an event run by Belgian newspapers De Tijd en L’Echo, De Wever was highly critical of earlier decisions on the production of energy, which he said made everything more expensive and harmed the European economy.
After having discussed the deteriorating relationships with the US and the need for a more robust European policy, De Wever focused on what he said were the severe and structural problems the continent is facing regarding energy.
He said the green transition was not a success, leaving China with all the cheap energy and Europe with “the crazy bills”.
De Wever called “competitivity, productivity and innovation” the “three horses”, while painting sustainability and the European Green Deal “the carriage”, meaning that the European Commission has put the cart before the horses.
He said Europe was overdependent on Russian gas while also counting on “the guy with the big stick” (the US) but now it turns out the US can use that big stick against Europe, a change he called “pivotal”.
According to De Wever, this exposed all Europe’s weaknesses and made things “extremely complicated with environmental rules that make it impossible to provide for our own energy needs, that make it impossible to mine for rare minerals in Europe”. The continent also has “no military capacity”.
At the same time, China is popping up in Africa and South America, where there is almost no European presence.
“We made our life extremely hard. We’ve made dogmatic choices against nuclear energy which was the stupidity of the century,” he said.
Despite his government’s intention to return to nuclear energy, De Wever noted: “We are far from there now.
“I had negotiations in Davos with the CEO of Engie [the energy company managing Belgium’s nuclear plants], if you talk about happy vassalage or slavery”, he said, referring to his earlier remarks about becoming a vessel of the US. “We’ve put ourselves in a very hard spot”, he said.
De Wever said Belgium can hold on to the capacity of the two youngest reactors Belgium has. There are also new technological possibilities, such as small modular reactors (SMRs). Belgium could also look for co-operation with neighbouring countries, especially France, whom he praised for its “intelligent energy choices”.
He noted, though, that it will take a lot of time and that dogmatic choices had been made in the past and were continuing today.
“There still isn’t technological neutrality in the policy of the EU,” he said.
De Wever said he had attended the North Sea Summit in Hamburg at the end of January, where leaders spoke confidently about ambitious plans for offshore energy. “We say this with a straight face,” he noted, “but what you actually hear at the round tables is far less positive.”
He pointed to what he said was the core problem: Cost. Offshore energy projects are extremely expensive and increasingly difficult to finance, he noted.
At one round table with wind energy executives, they openly admitted that offshore wind production is unpredictable and creates a gap between supply and demand. Their proposed solution was to use surplus energy to produce green hydrogen at sea.
“That sounds brilliant,” De Wever said, “but also extremely expensive.” When he asked what they needed from politicians, the answer was clear: Europe should create a market for green hydrogen. “That’s when I started to feel like I was in the Soviet Union,” he remarked. “If politicians have to create markets, that usually means subsidies without end.”
When he raised alternatives such as blue or purple hydrogen, he said he was treated like a heretic. “If you want to jump straight from where we are now to heaven, that will be incredibly expensive and ultimately impossible.”
Blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas using carbon capture and storage (CCS) to mitigate emissions, acting as a lower-carbon, transitional fuel. Purple hydrogen is produced via electrolysis or thermolysis using nuclear power, offering a zero-carbon, sustainable alternative.
De Wever said similar concerns were voiced by energy-intensive industries, including the steel sector. Faced with high energy prices, companies warned they would no longer invest in Europe unless governments covered the costs. As a result, state aid is becoming the norm, undermining the level playing field Europe claims to uphold, he said.
He warned that Europe is increasingly relying on subsidies to remain competitive while other major economies operate with fewer constraints. “You cannot be competitive in a subsidised economy,” he said.
He said the costly plans to make energy islands at sea were “daydreaming” that will lead to energy shortages, although he noted he was bound to step in for such projects already signed-off previously.
“And if the artery of your economy, energy, depends entirely on subsidies, you are heading in the wrong direction,” De Wever said.
Unless Europe is willing to dramatically increase carbon prices, he argued, many green energy projects will never be viable.
But doing so would accelerate de-industrialisation, he pointed out. “The decarbonisation of Europe risks becoming synonymous with the de-industrialisation of Europe,” he said, adding that this process is already underway as industries relocate abroad, pointing towards elements of the petrochemical industry leaving Europe.
