The European Business Summit, an annual event, took place in Brussels on May 22-23. This event usually gathers participants from businesses, public authorities and non-governmental organisations, reaching around 2200 participants.

It covered a very broad range of topics, from Brexit, to post-factual world, migration or digital society. ESTIF attended as participant, mainly on topics related to energy and industrial development.

On the energy side, the connection with the climate goals is evident in terms of conceptualisation of policies. Though we can observe today a strong struggle between incumbent industries and energy sources. There is a sturdy reaction to some of the proposed measures towards a stronger uptake of renewables, mainly related to the costs of transition. Though it is clear that a concrete energy transition will leave losers. Among those losers might be some conventional industries and players, with “rusted” businesses models. But such interests are able to slow and redirect change, with politicians not addressing this challenge eyes-on. As one participant mentioned: “We moved from Gore’s “inconvenient truth” to EU leaders’ reassuring ley”, as it is clear that European (as other regions) is not on the path to fulfil the Paris Climate Agreement, that they so loudly promoted. 

The challenge between decarbonisation and globalisation places a major challenge to Europe in the short and long-term future. And in this regard, the industrial policies in Europe need to step up to the evolution in other regions of the world. Europe is lagging the US for instance in start-ups and seed funding, or to Asia in technological innovation in some sectors. In this regard, the main challenges facing Europe are related to the capacity to adapt and to find the necessary resources: human (attract and retain talent), raw-materials (ensure access to critical minerals) or financial (activate private investment, namely from large investors – pension funds, etc.).

For more information on this event and some of the discussion, please contact members(at)estif.org.