Von der Leyen challenges China: ‘Let’s export clean tech to Africa and Central Asia’

Brussels – The European Union has already launched its anti-China strategy, and now work is underway on the next step: economic penetration into the African and Asian markets, where Beijing is already deeply entrenched, and from which the EU aims to displace it using EU-made clean tech. These are the declared intentions of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. At the ‘One Year After the Draghi Report’ Conference, she indicates the way forward for the years to come as one of the best ways to ensure competitiveness alongside sustainability.

“From Africa to India to Central Asia, they are looking for clean tech solutions”, von der Leyen said. “Europe can be home to frontrunner industries that can export the solutions to others. We should be the industrial powerhouse that meets this growing demand for clean tech.” This is where the Draghi report and the Green Deal meet, in a geopolitical battle waged against the People’s Republic.

 Beijing already has a strong presence in Latin America, while the EU lags behind with a trade agreement with Mercosur countries, also designed to bridge power relations. The Chinese government and government-linked companies already have a presence in Africa and Asia, and the People’s Republic alone controls raw materials crucial for the green economy. Specifically, von der Leyen notes, ​75 percent of cobalt processing, 90 percent of rare earths, and 100 percent of graphite. Reason for the European Commission to create resource alliances to circumvent the Chinese monopoly on germanium and gallium.

 https://www.eunews.it/2023/03/16/ue-materie-prime-critiche-cina/ 

The objective, therefore, is innovation and investment in renewable energy and clean technologies, on which to build a new industrial and economic era. A framework designed more for exports than for the internal market, which is why von der Leyen emphasizes the need to modernize and interconnect energy and distribution networks. It is also why she announces new measures, as she typically does on official occasions. “We will propose a Grids Package and a new Energy Highways initiative,” which will focus on eight critical bottlenecks in our energy infrastructure. From the Pyrenees to the Trans-Balkan pipeline. From the Øresund Strait to the Sicilian Canal.

Recycling, the circular approach at the heart of the European agenda developed by von der Leyen during her first term, already plays, and must increasingly play, a key role in the green and competitive relaunch strategy. “The circular economy is central to our security of supply,” she insists, and the numbers she offers serve to understand the scale of the challenge. “Already today, with every kilogram of raw materials, we produce 33% more output than the US, and 400% more than China,” she said. Therefore, here there is a “potential competitive advantage if we manage to scale this up.” The goal is to do the most with what you have, “creating a truly circular economy.”