Monday, October 15, 2012

Germany and the EU are subsidizing German exports


http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/energiewende-oekostrom-ausnahmen-im-eeg-fuer-die-industrie-a-860596.html

" ...Ein mindestens ebenso wichtiger Grund sind die weitreichenden Ausnahmen für energieintensive Industrieunternehmen. Allein im vergangenen Jahr beliefen sie sich auf insgesamt 8,6 Milliarden Euro..."  An at least equally important reason is the wide-ranging exemptions for energy-intensive industries. Last year alone, they totaled 8.6 billion euros.

If the German consumer or businessman has to incur, directly or indirectly, a Green tax, under any name, but the energy intensive industries are exempt from such tax, and such industries cater primarily to Germany's exports, then the German taxpayers are subsidizing their country's exports.  Not the end of the world (at least not the end of this neo-mercantilistic world).

If Germany, through the EU, and bizarre EU "policies" has forced other EU members and their industries to adopt Green taxes, but German energy intensive industries are exempt from such taxes, this is also an indirect EU subsidy to Germany energy intensive exports. It is not the only one, but this is not relevant right here.

Germany, through the EU, has imposed bizarre and arbitrary 20-20-20 goals to EU members, under the guise of saving the Planet from some imminent catastrophe, in addition to carbon taxes or the threat of carbon taxes, driving the mechanism.  This resulted in most countries, especially non-nuclear, non-hydroelectric countries to scramble to import manufactured goods from primarily Germany, and to a lesser extent Denmark, and Spain, with European electricity providers such as EDF and ENEL acting as the middleman is a emissions trading scheme by operating wind "farms". The net result is a further subsidy and competitive advantage for the German export industry. German solar panels and wind generators, are subsidized through forced sales to EU's periphery countries, funded by local consumers' inflated electricity bills.

Free trade may be a thing of the past, but this is a neo-feudal arrangement to subsidize a single country's exports to the rest of the world.