Sir Jim Ratcliffe has warned that Europe’s chemicals industry “faces extinction” and called on European Union leaders to ditch their carbon tax and increase tariffs to preserve it.

In an open letter published on Wednesday, the founder and owner of chemicals giant Ineos launched an excoriating assessment of the EU’s approach to the chemicals sector, which he said was in crisis.

“Chemicals in Europe is facing extinction,” the billionaire entrepreneur wrote. “Government policies have resulted in enormously higher energy prices and crippling carbon tax bills.”

“Government policies will shut all petrochemicals in Europe,” he added. “All our major competitors are planning for withdrawal from Europe as government has failed to act time after time.”

The intervention follows a similar salvo against the UK government from Manchester United owner Ratcliffe. Britain’s current industrial strategy meant his sector was “having the life squeezed out of it.“

Wednesday’s letter coincided with the EU’s publication of its Clean Industrial Deal, which the institution claimed laid out “concrete actions” aimed at “lowering energy prices, creating quality jobs and the right conditions for companies to thrive.”

The European Commission pledged to mobilise €100bn (£91.1bn) to bolster EU-made clean manufacturing and establish a ‘Union of Skills’ to invest in the continent’s industrial workforce as part of the plans.

A new Affordable Energy Action Plan was also among the raft of policies which promised to speed up the rollout of renewable infrastructure and improve energy usage efficiency.