Abstract
Since its beginnings with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), Europe has placed the question of energy at the heart of its integration project. Today, this issue is back in the spotlight with the challenges posed by climate change. How can the European Union (EU) make a success of its energy transition ? What kind of growth model can we expect in the coming years ? For the moment, Europe has succeeded in putting in place a number of unifying tools, such as the recent Green Deal , which aims to be the EU's " man on the moon ". Undeniable proof of Europe's leadership in the energy transition. If Europe achieves its target, it will be theworld'sfirst climate-neutral continent.
To get there, the EU has clearly understood that batteries, among many other technologies, will have a role to play. In 2019, it launched the European Battery Alliance, whose mission is to support, in the face of Chinese supremacy, a European battery industry that is both competitive and sustainable. This alliance is based on numerous initiatives that have set the right course. Unfortunately, in practice, the reality is more chaotic. The various partners sometimes seem more attracted by the financial windfall promised by these initiatives than by the objectives to be achieved. They may also end up giving priority to national rather than European policies. And yet, given that competition is global, we need to act on a European scale, not that of a single country. Otherwise, taken in isolation, our efforts will be counter-productive.
EU member states are currently betting on the installation of gigafactories in Europe to mass-produce batteries on their territory and reduce their dependence on Asia. However, this policy will not be able to compete with Asian supremacy. We're too far behind. To regain the upper hand, we need to anticipate tomorrow's technological breakthroughs and invent today the batteries of the future. This is the ambition of the European Battery project 2030+, which brings together some fifty partners from all over Europe. We hope that the scope of this federative initiative will prevent it from falling into the trap described above, and enable the EU to play a full and effective role in the global geopolitics of batteries.
