IndustriAll Europe is waiting for Commission’s decisive action to lower high energy prices for European consumers while remaining fully committed to Europe’s energy transition and decarbonisation goals. A transition which is essential for economic security and increased sovereignty.
Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of industriAll Europe, says: "We fully support these goals as they will support the maintenance and creation of quality jobs in Europe. However, we are concerned about some of the measures that are currently being discussed, that we believe are not fully informed.
"We need policies that create a business case for decarbonised production and not provide incentives for certain industries to trade secured energy supply during times of scarcity and high prices", she says.
Kirton-Darling emphasised that the often cited example of demand response measures during the recent price spikes at the height of the crisis in 2022-2023, does not take into account the impact on thousands of workers across Europe that were on job retention schemes during temporary production halts, or lost their jobs due to restructuring or permanent closures of energy-intensive companies.
IndustriAll Europe represents workers from chemicals, cement, glass, and paper to steel manufacturing. In our letter, we expressed caution on the merits of industrial flexibility for demand response, as the potentials seem unrealistic if the aim is to keep European manufacturing competitive – the very aim of the Clean Industrial Deal.
Kirton-Darling says: "While we acknowledge the vast potentials of demand response measures in a continued process of sector integration, we want to highlight the challenges of industrial flexibility. A glass tub cannot be stopped, as this would create irrevocable damage to the installation. In other sectors, a temporary halt of production, while not impossible, will mean economic loss for companies with an impact on workers, working time and working conditions. The potential impact is changing and reduced shifts, and potential layoffs, while it is unrealistic to call in workers flexibly to run production at night, when energy use and prices are low."
IndustriAll Europe deplores the fact that it was not invited to the recent stakeholder meeting when flexibility measures were discussed. Nor were any of its social partners from the energy intensive industry with whom it is discussing job-to-job transitions in decarbonised sectors.
As European Federation of Trade Unions representing both the workers producing energy and the ones working in high energy consuming industries, industriAll Europe calls for due attention to the challenges, and robust policy tools that create fairness and support good industrial jobs in decarbonised manufacturing across supply chains.
Read the letter here
Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of industriAll Europe, says: "We fully support these goals as they will support the maintenance and creation of quality jobs in Europe. However, we are concerned about some of the measures that are currently being discussed, that we believe are not fully informed.
"We need policies that create a business case for decarbonised production and not provide incentives for certain industries to trade secured energy supply during times of scarcity and high prices", she says.
Kirton-Darling emphasised that the often cited example of demand response measures during the recent price spikes at the height of the crisis in 2022-2023, does not take into account the impact on thousands of workers across Europe that were on job retention schemes during temporary production halts, or lost their jobs due to restructuring or permanent closures of energy-intensive companies.
IndustriAll Europe represents workers from chemicals, cement, glass, and paper to steel manufacturing. In our letter, we expressed caution on the merits of industrial flexibility for demand response, as the potentials seem unrealistic if the aim is to keep European manufacturing competitive – the very aim of the Clean Industrial Deal.
Kirton-Darling says: "While we acknowledge the vast potentials of demand response measures in a continued process of sector integration, we want to highlight the challenges of industrial flexibility. A glass tub cannot be stopped, as this would create irrevocable damage to the installation. In other sectors, a temporary halt of production, while not impossible, will mean economic loss for companies with an impact on workers, working time and working conditions. The potential impact is changing and reduced shifts, and potential layoffs, while it is unrealistic to call in workers flexibly to run production at night, when energy use and prices are low."
IndustriAll Europe deplores the fact that it was not invited to the recent stakeholder meeting when flexibility measures were discussed. Nor were any of its social partners from the energy intensive industry with whom it is discussing job-to-job transitions in decarbonised sectors.
As European Federation of Trade Unions representing both the workers producing energy and the ones working in high energy consuming industries, industriAll Europe calls for due attention to the challenges, and robust policy tools that create fairness and support good industrial jobs in decarbonised manufacturing across supply chains.
Read the letter here