Europe must accept higher short-term costs to reduce its dependence on China for clean-energy technologies, EU Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has told Euronews, warning that delaying action will make the strategic vulnerability harder and more expensive to unwind.
The EU should have confronted its reliance on China “five to ten years ago”, Hoekstra said, arguing that waiting longer would bring greater disruption and costs.
“But it will be much cheaper and much more to our advantage to do it now than be wishy washy and wait another five to 10 years,” the Dutch Commissioner said.
Europe needs to rapidly deploy solar, wind, batteries and other clean technologies to reach climate neutrality by 2050. But Hoekstra warned that heavy reliance on Chinese manufacturers for electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and energy storage risks replacing one strategic dependency with another — echoing Europe’s former dependence on Russia for cheap energy.
“This will stay with us for years to come, because the dependencies in many domains have simply become too large,” he said, describing the situation as a “dangerous and uncomfortable” vulnerability for both Europe’s climate ambitions and economic security.
