As Europe chases its energy transition, it risks deepening its dependence on Beijing — but economist Carlo Pelanda argues Brussels is showing early signs of a more assertive, if pragmatic, turn.
The most recent signals, he says, suggest Brussels is now searching for a more assertive way to define its interests — or at least intends to.
Why it matters: To illustrate what this means in practice, Pelanda starts from a very concrete case: solar panels. “We keep buying solar panels from China because producing them at home costs us more,” Pelanda says. Beijing offers technology that is “not excellent, but works well enough — and, above all, comes at an unbeatable price”.
Between the lines: That is precisely the dilemma now playing out over Italy’s Transition 5.0 plan. As Decode39 recently reported, pressure is growing to loosen Made in EU requirements and reopen incentives to cheaper Chinese green technologies.
Strategic convergence. One possible answer is what Pelanda calls the “Pax Silica” — a US-led effort, which Italy has joined, to build a critical-minerals extraction and processing chain among compatible democracies, independent of China. He describes it as a form of “selective globalization” that cannot be built in one or two years, but could bear fruit within roughly five years or slightly more.
The bigger picture. Rather than American-style tariffs — which he says can inflict significant self-harm — Pelanda favours a negotiated compromise.
Political fault lines. The obstacle is cohesion. Germany’s auto-sector positioning, rooted in the early 1990s, is difficult to dismantle, and there is no European consensus for coordinated tariff action.
What it signals: Pelanda’s prescription is essentially deter, then deal: identify China’s vulnerabilities, act on them to create leverage, then signal a willingness to compromise before confrontation turns into an economic war that would hurt both sides.
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