European plastics industry ploughs on / High energy costs and bag bans still an issue / Realities of shale revolution start knocking on Brussels' doors/ M&A activity in the plastics packaging sector continues

摘要

If there was a sentence that summed up the mood in the European plastics sector in 2014, it would probably be "it is not a sprint, it is a marathon." All the complaints notwithstanding, it was a relatively good year for many leading European economies, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK. That is quite a feat considering the doomsday scenarios of US shale gas sounding the death knell of European production, the ongoing struggles with the EU and the political crises in Ukraine and the Arab region.