Call to end EU trade measures on Chinese solar cells

Reported by Pinsent Masons on 14Oct2016, an open letter from a lobby group Solar Power Europe (the link on Pinset Masons article to the open letter is now withdrawn) calls for the end of protectionist measures against imported Chinese solar stuff.

Germany chose to phase out its nuclear power stations after the Fukushima nuclear event.  Since then, energy prices in Germany have increased as the overhead of the German power grid carries fewer kilowatt-hours on which to charge its fees.  It seems to have occurred to some in Germany (and elsewhere in Europe) that the import tariffs on Chinese imports inflates the underlying cost of energy production in Germany still further, and that this isn’t a particularly good thing for Germany (or for anybody else in Europe pinning their hopes on German economic muscle).

On the one hand, the open letter calls for common sense.  On the other hand, it shows that the European Union is still open to lobbying.

This example demonstrates both, i.e. the European Union needs to be lobbied to destroy European regulation that undermines Europe’s own economic (and energy) sustainability.  It’s akin to an open letter to the European government to permit human beings to breathe.

As the letter said, “A policy that was designed to help the few has failed to do so, only serving to harm the very many right across the EU.”

And that, of course, is the point.  Small, tin-pot vested interests are what the European Union is all about.  In European policy choices - whether import tariffs or employment law - the future can always be mortgaged; re-paying that mortgage is always somebody else’s problem.