{"id":15679,"date":"2025-04-13T05:27:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T05:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/15679\/"},"modified":"2025-04-13T05:27:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T05:27:39","slug":"italy-spain-back-frances-plan-to-rescue-eu-chemicals-industry-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/15679\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy, Spain back France\u2019s plan to rescue EU chemicals industry \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia have also backed the latest chemicals proposal. Germany, the EU\u2019s biggest chemical producer, has not signed up.<\/p>\n<p>The latest proposal, first reported by POLITICO on Tuesday, adds a few more \u201cstrategic molecules\u201d to the previous list, including toluene and xylene. Phenol and styrene also make the cut as key substances across a range of industries, from pharmaceuticals and adhesives to plastics and detergents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLow carbon footprint molecules, that can characterize sustainable chemicals and substitute any of the above strategic molecules \u2026 should also be considered strategic,\u201d the text suggests. It acknowledges, though, that since those molecules are still in \u201cearly stages of research and development, it remains difficult to foresee which ones will be the fossil-free molecules of the future\u201d and, as such, EU support \u201cshould not be restricted to specific alternative molecules.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new proposal lays out a \u201ctentative\u201d list of bio-based molecules that could replace fossil-based ones, including bio-based glycerol and bio-based ethanol.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2128606059-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6302823\"  \/>The idea is to protect the sector to ensure Europe remains self-sufficient in chemicals used in everything from fertilizer production to plastics. | Raul Bravo\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The countries say investing in biofuels, plastic recycling, bioplastics, downstream chemical chains would also be a \u201cstrategic\u201d move.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal was put forward by EU member country ministers in the Competitiveness Council on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia have also backed the latest chemicals proposal. Germany, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[1311,10683,10684,10685,3032,2000,299,10686,36,2190,2199,5167,5769,10687,10688,10689,1438,2558,104,3053],"class_list":{"0":"post-15679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-biofuels","9":"tag-business-and-competition","10":"tag-chemicals","11":"tag-critical-raw-materials","12":"tag-czech-republic","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-fertilizers","16":"tag-france","17":"tag-hungary","18":"tag-italy","19":"tag-manufacturing","20":"tag-medicines","21":"tag-plastics","22":"tag-recycling","23":"tag-research-and-development","24":"tag-romania","25":"tag-slovakia","26":"tag-spain","27":"tag-the-netherlands"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114329003422806824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}