By Emma Rowley
EUROPE’S failure to cultivate growth is a bigger worry for oil and gas major Royal Dutch Shell than the region’s current sovereign debt crisis.
The Anglo-Dutch company has cut its support of European projects to just 15pc of its total investment spend, which it puts at $100bn (£62bn) over four years. Shell expects to keep reducing that share amid longer-term concerns about the region, according to Simon Henry, its chief financial officer.
“Europe’s macroeconomic position can only recover, and the sovereign debt crisis can only be addressed, through underlying economic growth, and we do not see the European Union creating the conditions for that – in fact, quite the opposite,” he said. “Most moves made by the Commission, one way or the other, tend to almost, either directly or indirectly, reduce the competitiveness of European industry.”