Nowhere is the failure of the EU to create a true common market more evident, according to executives at the 12th European Business Summit, than in energy.

“We have to acknowledge that producing metals is very energy-intensive – this is a problem,” said Oliver Bell, president of Eurometaux, the European umbrella association for the non-ferrous metal industry. “Europe needs good materials for our innovations. Metals [are] the starting point in the industrial value chain. It’s the element that’s made Europe strong, coming through the crisis,” Bell told delegates at the meeting in Brussels last week.