Exxon Threatens To Take Billions Of Dollars In 'Climate Investment' Out Of The EU
Exxon has warned the European Union that it will leave and take billions of dollars in "climate investment" (whatever that really means) with it unless Brussels makes it easier to spend those billions on transition-related projects.
The Financial Times cited the company today as saying that there was way too much red tape in the EU and it took too long to get a project going, which prompted the supermajor to consider spending its $20 billion in "decarbonization investments" for 2022 - 2027 elsewhere.
“What we’re experiencing is the deindustrialisation of the European economy and we’re concerned,” Karen McKee, president of Exxon Product Solutions, told the FT.
"Decarbonization investments" sound a lot like grift and fraud anyway, so what exactly is stopping the deindustrialisation even if Exxon's grift were to continue?
The European Union’s leadership has promised time and again it will facilitate "transition projects" but it seems it has been slow to act on this promise. According to Exxon—and a lot of other companies involved in the "transition" — getting a project off the ground in the EU is fraught with regulatory obstacles and “slow and torturous” permitting and funding procedures, per Exxon’s McKee.
The EU’s "Green Deal" plan for grift features a “predictable and simplified regulatory environment” as one of its four pillars but judging from the reactions of the business world, this has yet to go from theory to practice. Faster access to funding is the second pillar in the EU’s lineup but that, too, is taking quite long to materialize.
This, yet again, exposes one of the serious problems with a rigged centrally planned economy run by government bureaucrats. Bureaucrats do not know how free markets work and often reject them. Bureaucrats do not build infrastructure. Bureaucrats do not produce. Bureaucrats do not take risks with investment. Bureaucrats are not business buffs. Bureaucrats do not serve consumers or help with supply and demand in any way. Therefore bureaucrats are sheltered from the real economy, constantly pushing their own ideological policies.
For example, who would want to invest in energy infrastructure in the EU when they're complicit in blowing up their own oil pipelines (Nordstream I & II)?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/exxon-threatens-take-billions-dollars-climate-investment-out-eu
