Europe Wants “Resilience.” What It Might Actually Get Is a Chemistry Zoo.
“Germans, buy German lemons!”
That was the satirical line used by Kurt Tucholsky nearly a century ago to mock nationalist fantasies of economic self-sufficiency. His point was simple: in a world economy, isolation is absurd.
Yet here we are again.
The word isn’t nationalism anymore.
Now it’s called “resilience.”
Europe must reduce dependence on imports. Europe must become strategically autonomous. Europe must secure its critical industries.
The language sounds rational. The politics feel urgent. The causes are real: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, America’s erratic politics, China’s economic leverage.
But scratch beneath the rhetoric and a disturbing question emerges:
Is Europe trying to engineer independence in a system that is fundamentally interdependent?
Or worse—
Is the EU about to turn its industrial economy into a protected zoo?
The Mother of All Industries
Politicians love talking about critical sectors.
Defense.
Food.
Energy.
Healthcare.
But trace any one of those industries back far enough and you arrive at the same place:
Chemistry.
Chemistry is the mother industry of modern civilization.
No chemistry means:
no plastics
no fertilizers
no pharmaceuticals
no batteries
no semiconductors
no explosives
no synthetic fibers
no industrial coatings
no solar panels
Even agriculture—supposedly the most “natural” sector of all—runs on chemistry. Modern food production depends on nitrogen fertilizers synthesized through the Haber–Bosch process, which itself consumes vast amounts of natural gas.
Take away chemistry and modern society doesn’t just slow down.
It collapses within a growing season.
Yet Europe’s chemical industry is currently shrinking.
Since 2022, roughly 9% of chemical production capacity in Europe has shut down. Energy prices remain structurally higher than in the United States or the Middle East. Chinese producers dominate bulk chemicals. Investment flows elsewhere.
Now Brussels has a solution.
The EU’s New Industrial Planning Experiment
In October 2025, the European Commission launched the Critical Chemicals Alliance.
Its mission:
identify “critical molecules”
map strategic production sites
coordinate investment priorities
prevent industrial shutdowns
On paper it sounds sensible.
In practice it raises uncomfortable questions.
The alliance already includes over 140 members:
governments
corporations
investors
research institutes
NGOs
regional authorities
It will hold general assemblies, steering committees, and working groups.
In other words:
bureaucratic industrial planning.
The EU will effectively decide which chemicals Europe “needs.”
And that should make every economist slightly nervous.
Because history has shown repeatedly that planned industrial systems are spectacularly bad at predicting demand.
Just look at China.
Part 2 coming tomorrow...
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