The ESMC has asked the European Union to take action against forced labor in the global PV supply chain.
In a position paper, the association outlined a due diligence program that should help PV manufacturers avoid exposure to forced labor in their supply chains.
“The EU must adopt robust legislation as soon as possible to prohibit the sale of products made with forced labor,” the trade body said, taking a clear position on the matter for the first time.
The association said it urged all its members cut their ties with suppliers and sub-suppliers from the Xinjiang region in China, where forced labor is allegedly being implemented.
“In awaiting the legislation, the EU must act urgently to prevent products made with forced labour from entering the European market,” it said.
The ESMC also proposed the creation of a database for over risk-areas and products, the implementation of a reversed burden of proof mechanism, and the introduction of due diligence obligations, among other things.
The report does not provide new evidence that forced labor is currently being used in the PV industry in the Xinjiang region. The association said its sources are reports from independent research institutes and international organizations, but cited exclusively the most recent report from Sheffield Hallam University.
The ESMC is an industry association that was created in 2019 with the aim of promoting the interests of the European PV manufacturing sector.
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The statements and the paper are disconcerting.
ESMC claims since its foundation to stand for particularly sustainable and “clean” solar productions and products.
And only now they ask their own members to immediately check their own supply chains for possible forced labor? Where corresponding discussions have already been going on for many years in all industries.
Wow, quite late for such particularly “clean” EU manufacturers.
But it makes a hell of a lot of sense to do this.
Because all EU manufacturers use products and materials from China to varying degrees. Several imported at least 2 gigawatts (probably more like 5 GWp) of finished modules from China in 2022 to sell them under their name. Not all of them take it so exactly with the declaration, where these goods come from, and suggest a production in the EU. Not “clean” in my opinion.
Also at least 95% of the cells come from China. Wafers, ingots partly to 100% – even if in total only a few hundred megawatts because there is only one (globally tiny and uncompetitive) real EU cell manufacturer.
But the paper mixes already on page 1 the topic of forced labor with demands for trade restrictions to protect the EU manufacturers. But what do these have to do with the issue of forced labor?
Or is this intentionally mixed up to distract from the fact that the EU manufacturers are all tiny, all technologically years behind the Chinese, often described as unreliable and yet extremely expensive?
So the (tiny) EU solar manufacturers import the vast majority of their upstream products from China themselves. At the same time, you make harsh accusations about forced labor and “dumping”. Whereas they themselves profit massively from cheaper imports of their input materials.
Their demands are therefore mendacious and if they were to be implemented in a hurry, EU production would immediately come to an end, down to the smallest remnants. Because then nothing of materials would come into the EU.
Because if their demands were implemented immediately, the grandiose approx. 80 GWp market in the EU would collapse abruptly in 2023. This would set back the energy security of the EU and climate protection by many years.
Hundreds of thousands would lose their jobs. Already once a badly managed EU manufacturer (Solarworld) has led the EU market to the slaughter (by the introduction of tariffs in 2013) and still went bankrupt itself. Hundreds of thousands have lost their solar jobs in the EU because of the tariffs for the few jobs at Solarworld, which went bankrupt and disappeared completely. Existences were destroyed, people permanently traumatized. By unscrupulous action from their own ranks without any benefit.
I could not imagine that the EU manufacturers again demand measures that can cause such damage – and that also for themselves and immediately.
And thus their EU customers without any dialogue about common interests to lead in the face.
As we have seen the total destruction before:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/09/22/how-solar-tariffs-destroyed-tens-of-thousands-of-jobs-in-germany/
I am stunned.