In a speech on “Economy Day,” organized by the Forza Italia party, ENI CEO Claudio Descalzi blasted the EU Green Deal and called for shifting from “climate policies” back to “growth policies.” ENI, although downsized from the time of its founder Enrico Mattei, is among the world’s “supermajor” energy companies and still has a major influence on Italian foreign policy, especially on Italy’s relations to oil and gas producing countries.
“I do not want to be anti-European,” Descalzi said, “I am anti-stupidity because stupidity kills and is killing us. We are suffering it in the light of ridiculous ideologies that are being dictated to us by a minority in Europe,” with obvious reference to the rejection of the Italian proposal of postponing commitments to endothermic engine phase-out.
Descalzi’s remarks are more important, as ENI first spent a lot of money in pitching itself as a green company, but is now confronted with more urgent issues such as the Western auto crisis.
According to Descalzi, European supply chains are competitive “on the environment and not on growth, and in fact Americans and Chinese tell us we are great and meanwhile they invest in growth.” As for e-fuels, or synthetic fuels produced from water and carbon dioxide—an issue pushed especially by Germany—he was blunt: It is an option that “does not exist at the moment.”
Regarding China, Descalzi remarked that “we keep comparing Europe to China, but China is a state while Europe is a continent, made up of different cultures and energy mixes.” Descalzi complained about the decline of the industrial component of the economy: “The secondary [industrial] sector was stopped. It went on to the tertiary sector that was urged by globalization: We import more than twice what we export.”
And on decarbonization, he said: “We emit less CO2, but it is a fairy tale: Europe has reduced harmful emissions only because production has been moved elsewhere in the world.”
