Petrochemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe has blamed Europe’s “suffocating bureaucracy” and environmental red tape for pushing companies to invest outside the bloc, admitting that he would not have agreed on a landmark €4bn investment in Belgium if he had known of the regulatory roadblocks in advance.The European Commission’s Green Deal, an ambitious push to decarbonise the EU, needed to also take into account the importance of supporting industry, Ratcliffe told the Financial Times, warning of the rising backlash from businesses towards Brussels’ “uncompetitive” policies.
“You’re going to go to America or China or the Middle East to build new capacity if it’s this difficult in Europe,” said Ratcliffe, chief executive of petrochemicals group Ineos, who has just completed a deal to buy a 27 per cent stake in UK’s Manchester United football team.
Europe’s falling business competitiveness relative to the US, China and other rivals has become a critical issue for the continent’s biggest industries, prompting major political debate inside the EU on how to protect its single market while also maintaining world-leading environmental transition targets.