In Germany, the chemical company BASF does not rule out the possibility of moving its most “energy-intensive” production outside of Europe. In France, glass manufacturer Duralex received an emergency loan from the state on Monday to survive the winter. Across Europe, industry is afraid of moving factories to countries where energy is cheaper, AFP reports.

Faced with the risk of deindustrialization weighing on Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting a dinner for Europe’s big industrialists on Monday night to encourage them to stay on the old continent.

Among the guests were also representatives of the European Industry Round Table (ERT), which includes about sixty of the continent’s most important companies. Among them are the heads of Engie, Orange, Ericsson, Unilever, AstraZeneca, Volvo, BMW, Air Liquide and Solvay.

The aim was to tell them to stay in Europe and choose France.

Because “gas and electricity bills will be multiplied by an average of four,” Eric Trappier, general manager of Dassault Aviation and president of the French Union of the Metallurgical Industry (UIMM), explained to Les Echos on Monday. In Italy, electricity bills have increased fivefold, according to the Confederation of Industry Confindustria.

According to Trappier, “several industrialists” even say they “regret the investment they made six months ago” to expand a factory in France as their production costs rise.

The risk of an energy shift, or rather a “major industrial reorientation” to attractive territories such as the United States or Asia, is currently the “main structural risk” weighing on Europe, Nicolas de Warren, president of Uniden, summarized for AFP. which represents 36 industrialists representing more than 70% of the industrial energy consumed in France, in the agricultural, automotive, chemical, cement, electronic, metallurgical, paper, transport and glass sectors.

Plant after plant

According to him, these energy transfers will not take place in the form of takeovers of companies, as in the 1990s, but in the form of transfer of workload “from plant to plant”.

This is already happening with fertilizers and ammonia, which are more than 80% dependent on the price of gas. Many companies have closed their factories to start production in regions of the world where gas is cheaper.

In Normandy (northwest France), Fabrice Tourres, president of Univerre, a glass manufacturer, is seeing “the first deliveries to Asia,” according to Medef president Geoffroy Roux de Béziers. Until now, glass, whose energy accounts for 30% of the cost, was produced locally because it was heavy and therefore expensive to transport.

The famous Duralex glass factory, which is also suffocating due to the explosion of energy prices, will receive a loan of 15 million euros from the state.

On Friday, German chemical giant BASF hinted that job transfers could continue, saying it would not rule out moving “particularly energy-intensive” production.

The German group will announce plans to set up production in the first quarter. “The question is whether the basic products can still be produced competitively in Europe and Germany in the long term,” CEO Martin Brudermüller asked the Handelsblatt newspaper on Thursday.

Steel maker ArcelorMittal has already temporarily closed several blast furnaces this fall in Spain, Germany and France under pressure from falling steel demand on the old continent and energy costs.

Another cause for concern for Europe’s major energy-intensive industries, which are forced to invest in decarbonization, is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed by the Biden administration, which provides generous subsidies and further undermines European competitiveness.

“Beyond economic support measures, which are necessary band-aids, we need to address the core of the problem, which is the reform of electricity prices in Europe,” argued Nicholas de Warren.

Therefore, industrialists are looking forward to the proposals of the European Commission in the “white paper” regarding the freezing of gas prices and the long-awaited revision of the European electricity market by the end of December.