The president of Plastics Europe (Brussels; www.plasticseurope.org), Marco ten Bruggencate, warned against a deindustrialisation of Europe: at the K 2022 trade fair in Düsseldorf, Germany, he said the European plastics industry is currently in a “very, very difficult phase.”

The Ukraine war and the resulting uncertainty over energy supplies has underscored the urgency for the industry to switch from fossil raw materials to “green resources”, ten Bruggencate said, noting, however, that there is still no binding political framework from the EU. This, according to the association’s president, means that companies are delaying decisions on investing in their European production sites, and the risk that the money will flow into plants overseas is increasing.

In order to reduce the danger of such funds leaving Europe to be deployed elsewhere, and thus prevent the threat of European deindustrialisation, ten Bruggencate, who is commercial VP for packaging and speciality plastics at petrochemical giant Dow, appealed to the plastics industry to work together “super-efficiently”, and to approach the Green Deal called for by politicians with verve.