Saving Europe’s Core Industries: Cut the Red Tape

Two years ago, many in industry stood behind the Antwerp Declaration to restore clarity, predictability, and confidence to Europe’s industrial landscape. Last year, we welcomed the Clean Industrial Deal as a partial step toward that goal. After attending this year’s European Industry Summit with EU heads of state, I wish I could report progress. Instead, the situation has grown more dire.

Europe’s petrochemical sector – so strategic to prosperity, security, and innovation – is on life support. Site closures are accelerating, with tens of thousands of jobs lost. Meanwhile, dozens of refineries have shut down or been converted since 2009. And this erosion extends well beyond these sectors.

Across Europe’s industrial base, the trend is the same. Eurostat data shows industrial production falling significantly over the past several years. Deindustrialization is becoming structural, spreading to steel, autos, and other manufacturing sectors — all facing the same mix of high energy costs, regulatory burden, and economic uncertainty. Europe is losing manufacturing capacity, skills, and investment momentum at a pace that should alarm all of us. Once industrial infrastructure is gone, it rarely returns.

My message is direct: Cut the red tape now.

Make it simpler to do business in Europe. Reduce the regulatory burden that inflates costs, multiplies complexity, and diverts scarce engineers from building projects to filling out paperwork. And don’t try picking winners. Set ambitious outcomes and let all technologies compete to decarbonize at the lowest cost to society. The urgency is real because policy is preventing, not enabling, investment.

For example, we have two chemical recycling projects in Antwerp and Rotterdam that could process 80,000 metric tons of plastic waste annually through co‑processing in our existing refineries. But they’re on pause because of outdated policies that seemingly favor costlier, stand-alone options.

We need more solutions to tackling waste, not less. The remedy is clear. Let all technologies compete instead of micromanaging how industry should recycle plastics. Legislate based on logic, not anti-petroleum ideology.

ExxonMobil wants to be part of the solution. Let us.

We’ve been part of Europe’s progress for more than 135 years. Over the past 15 years we’ve invested roughly €20 billion on the continent. But recently we’ve reduced our investment in Europe relative to other regions. Under current conditions, only a tiny portion of ExxonMobil’s planned €17 billion in lower‑emissions spending worldwide is likely to land there. The metastasizing regulatory burden is a major reason.

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), for instance, which gives Europe the ability to regulate an overseas-headquartered company’s operations anywhere in the world, remains unacceptable and will heighten litigation and compliance risk across global value chains, chilling investment. And it’s much more than CSDDD. Current Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) proposals push more red tape and unproven science on secondary microplastics reporting, despite a lack of consensus on how to accurately detect or report them. This is just one more straw on the back of an overregulated European economy.

ExxonMobil supports ambitious climate and circularity goals, and we’re investing billions to achieve them. For any of that spending to occur in Europe, the policy framework must offer a realistic business case that makes sense. Decarbonization requires innovation, not deindustrialization. To do that, Europe needs investment, not attrition.

If they recognize the strategic importance of the refining and petrochemical sectors, simplify rules and recognize all credible technologies. Then Europe will unlock private capital at speed and scale. It has the talent, the infrastructure, and the ambition. What it needs is enabling policy to match. If they deliver that, industry will deliver the investment, innovation, and lower‑emission solutions Europe deserves.

So act now. Cut the red tape. Open the door to every technology. Restore a level playing field so European industry can compete – and win.