Climate club founded, climate border tax decided - the industry should be able to breathe easy.

The EU is finally giving an answer to the central question of how it intends to achieve its climate goals without de-industrialization.

The climate club initiated by Chancellor Olaf Scholz is intended to prevent the necessary investments at G-7 level from distorting competition.

China and others are to join.

And those who are not willing to do so should – as agreed by the EU institutions – pay a levy on the import of CO2-intensive products that corresponds to the costs of European competition.

So is the fair competition for the best approaches to climate protection now beginning?

Can the Europeans finally be sure that, in their eternal pioneering role, they will not at some point be left alone “in the heat”?

Not at all.

The climate club remains only a vague hope.

What is the entry of the United States worth, for example, as long as President Joe Biden is simultaneously launching subsidy programs in the hundreds of billions, such as the Inflation Reduction Act?

When it comes to climate protection, Biden relies on the principle of “support instead of demanding”.

This can and must be regretted from a regulatory point of view - especially since the Europeans have so far been excluded from the subsidies.

However, it will inevitably result in the EU being placed at a disadvantage in international competition.

The border tax changes little about that.

This only ensures that the European industry can act on an equal footing with the competition from third countries within the EU internal market.

It is still at a disadvantage on the international markets because the EU has so far not wanted to promote the goods when they are exported.

In short, it would have been better to give industry free CO2 rights as before, even if that may reduce the incentive to invest in green technologies.

Climate policy, in combination with permanently higher energy prices, threatens to become a threat to the industrial base of the EU.

This may not trigger mass exodus.

Something like this is a gradual process.

All the more reason why the EU must do everything possible to create ideal framework conditions for the industry, at least in other respects.