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Just to address this separately: there is effectively energy rationing in several European countries, where the government intervenes to prioritize who should receive energy first (e.g., the Netherlands and Denmark).
And Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are also energy poor states that have been able to maintain capacity.
The energy excuse is true for some manufacturing processes like automotive in CEE which were pants that were built in the 1990s to 2000s and leveraged Russian ONG, but is a red herring for a lot of other manufacturing processes in Europe.
European states have a coordination problem as Draghi pointed out 2 years ago.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/taiwan-semiconductor
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/tsmc-could-accoun...
More to the point, from 2019 they built €17 billion new fab development which doubled the manufacturing capacity available in Ireland and enabled the production of Intel 4, the company’s most advanced process technology.
The Double Irish (& Dutch Sandwich) where Companies routed profits through two Irish-registered subsidiaries, attributing intellectual property royalties to a management seat in a tax haven like Bermuda, is closed since 2015.
Subsequent sequential mismatch structures (the "Single Malt" tool) that replaced the Double Irish for certain firms using non-EU residency loops were also banned. Finally there's a 12.5% charge on unrealized capital gains when a company moves its assets or tax residency out of Ireland.
The headline tax rate and the effective tax rate are also very different things. France's effective corporate tax rate was actually lower than Irelands - but France is an absolutely brutal place to do business in for employers and they've comparatively no english-language tech FDI to speak of.
It's because whenever Intel asks for anything, the Taoiseach, IDA, and Invest Ireland will move mountains to do it.
Ireland is extremely business friendly because their leadership actually listens to industry.
I think what the OP wanted to highlight is right here: in China or Taiwan etc. this would not have taken 7 years.
2019: Kick-off
2020: Construction in Ireland basically halted due to Lockdown for 18 months
Q3'2023: Fab 34 begins running a ‘First Full Loop’ of silicon
Q4'2023: Fab 34 completed. Doubles the manufacturing capacity available in Ireland, enabling the production of Intel 4 and Intel 3, some of the company’s most advanced process technologies, and the first to incorporate EUV lithography
2024: Intel sold 49% stake to Apollo GM for $11.2bn
2026: Intel buys back stake for $14.2bn
Q2'2026: Intel announce a further $5.7bn investment to upgrade existing capacity for server chips, slated for completion by late 2027
The issue is with policymaking - coordination between the EU, national, and local governments is weak so high capex projects become risky.
Edit: can't reply
> Your first 3 countries are also incredibly poor comparisons for living standards as they have horrendous work/life balance.
Their hours worked are comparable to most Western European states as well now [0]. Germany is unique in Europe based on hours worked, and is why German industry is pushing to bring back the 40 hour work week.
[0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html
Your first 3 countries are also incredibly poor comparisons for living standards as they have horrendous work/life balance.
So vague as to be utterly meaningless.
And slow moving regulation literally incentivises high capex long-horizon investment.
Those alive invest in long term planning, those with a dead drive get conservative in their action.
But that's little consolation I understand. I get that when there are two elephants sitting on you, someone telling you how fortunate you are to not have a third one on top of you as well, is a little annoying.
The European Commission wanted to put hefty tariffs on dumped Chinese steel but the carmakers sought an exemption. They don't care about European sovereignty, only about their profits. Penny wise and pound foolish. I doubt there will still be a European car industry in two decades or so.
Europe is a lost continent.
You clearly have no idea about the value creation chain. Steel is a commodity, why shoot yourself into the foot by buying expensive one. And semiconductors are not commodities.
But I guess this logic only makes sense to a country that insists on using its own overpriced steel to save a couple jobs.
Steel is not a commodity, it's a basic ingredient in any industrial base.
This is just such a dire situation to be in. Even USA has seen the writing on the wall regarding China-Taiwan which is why it has been strategically re-homing all the most advanced chip fab technology to Arizona [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC_Arizona
While bleeding edge backend processes got the bulk of reporting, the major push for the American CHIPS Act was the rebuild packaging capacity in the US (Samsung is working on this in Texas).
This was also the same approach Taiwan, Malaysia, and China used to climb up the semiconductor value chain.
The EU also failed to tie design capacity together as well, as semiconductor design capacity is almost nonexistent in Europe.
Europe is just a geographic accident as far as the Dutch are concerned.
Missing from article is where they are selling which I assume is mostly Taiwan and America.
The fact that Europe has incredibly limited frontier chip making capability is the issue, though. Even if they can produce other chips, its position is not at all resilient.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-22/asml-exec...