Don't let the sun go down on EU

With apologies to Elton John.

The EU is urging its members to sign a joint declaration pledging to revive the bloc’s dying solar industry, a document seen by POLITICO shows — the most concrete signal yet on how Brussels plans to address the perilous situation.

The document from the European Commission, the EU’s executive in Brussels, comes as European solar firms warn of an imminent collapse in the face of heavily subsidized Chinese competition and an EU supply glut. Last week, one of Europe’s largest solar producers, Meyer Burger, said it would halt module production in Germany this month…

For months, the industry has been urging the Commission to spearhead an emergency buyout of inventories and further relax EU subsidy rules…To keep the sector alive, argued Dries Acke, policy director at the SolarPower Europe lobby, the Commission “needs to become more concrete very soon” with plans to unlock EU cash.

DB2