The European Union’s green ambitions have gone too far and the growing bureaucracy could seriously weaken Europe’s competitiveness, according to Jacob Wallenberg, chairman of Investor.
Brussels is making life difficult for its own companies, while competitors such as China are fleeing the continent, he claims. The expert emphasizes that the companies that chose to work closely with the EU fundamentally support the climate transition and continue to invest in it—despite it losing sight of the correct balance between virtue, ambition, and competitiveness.
While Wallenberg appears to be on board with green ideology, he is highly critical of its implementation:
We should invest in the green transition. Partly it is a moral responsibility, partly we believe that customers want green products and that young people want to work for employers who are actively involved in the green transition.
In basic agreement with the political direction, Wallenberg makes serious criticisms of the decisions it influences. He sees the challenge of climate change as global, but Europe risks bearing a disproportionate burden, while the biggest emissions are elsewhere:
The EU has gone too far in its ambitions. The EU would solve all the world’s problems, while the biggest problems are not in Europe. They are in India, China and South America. We will do everything, but this must happen in orderly conditions.
Wallenberg believes that Europe must be careful not to harm its own companies’ competitive opportunities on the world market with rules that competing countries do not have to comply with. For instance, the regulations used to fulfill the increasing requirements for EU sustainability reporting have become so comprehensive that the administrative burden goes far beyond what is reasonable:
The EU … has required green reporting down to very small companies. For large companies, reporting has become more extensive than the annual report.
These problems are not exclusive to Brussels: there is also a culture in Sweden where people are willing to apply the rules even more strictly than what the EU requires.
For Wallenberg, the ultimate question is whether Europe can find a better balance between climate ambition and competitiveness—before the continent loses even more ground to fast-growing competitors such as China.
