EU Decarbonisation: Do EU Electricity Costs Harm Export Competitiveness?

Abstract

The EU has become a leading protagonist of decarbonisation in the era of challenging international competitiveness. This research aims to investigate a relationship between energy costs pushed by decarbonisation (case of electricity) and the export competitiveness of EU countries. Within panel regression, the authors used unit energy costs (UEC) for electricity and analysed export competitiveness via domestic value added in gross export from the TiVA database. The research proved the negative effect of increasing unit energy costs for electricity on export competitiveness, but only at the entire industry level. The even stronger negative effect of increasing energy costs was found among EU13 countries (new members and industry-based countries). The original and most important findings bring UEC data for the EU countries, prove different effects of decarbonisation on export competitiveness within the EU27, and investigate selected decarbonisation effects on energy-intensive industries. The results related to the potentially harmful and diversified effects of decarbonisation commitments on export competitiveness are essential for further “green” reforms policies of the EU