Electricity and industrial competitiveness: how to bring about the EU’s reindustrialization?

Sectoral trends seen over the past 20 years shows that electricity prices have caused the EU to drop in the international competition pecking order for certain “volume” activities (aluminum, steel, in particular), and, overall, to suffer a marked decline in the share of manufacturing activities in European GDP.The electricity price differential between the EU, on the one hand, and China and the US, on the other, has increased since 2005, taking on considerable proportions during the 2022 energy crisis.  Three factors emerge to account for this widening differential: the EU’s greater exposure than its main trading partners’ to fluctuations of global fossil fuel prices, a more marked carbon constraint in Europe, and, to a lesser extent, some arrangements governing bilateral contracting of renewable electricity for European corporations.In the wake of the 2022 crisis, the EU has begun to reshuffle its electricity market so as to decouple to the best possible extent electricity prices actually paid by consumers, especially industrials, from those of fossil fuels, which are largely imported.The proposals of the Draghi Report, as well as recent initiatives at both European and national levels, show that there is a way to reconcile such objectives as supportive electricity price levels, strengthened competitiveness of basic industries and accelerated decarbonization of the EU economy.Against such backdrop, France could soon explore new avenues in the area of cooperative financing for future nuclear reactors.