It feels a bit astonishing that the main concern of printing companies in times of pandemic, political tension, and climate debate is the availability of paper. Nevertheless, the problems printers are experiencing are real. Intergraf reports that “For over 6 months, the sector is experiencing an unprecedent crisis. Paper prices have registered a growth rate of 45% on average in the last 6 months, even up to 80% for newsprint paper used to produce newspapers. These soaring prices, mainly due to increasing energy costs, are now accompanied by a major shortage of paper and board across Europe.”

Judging the extent of the lack of paper is more difficult, however. The Eurostat production index can give some insight on how the production in EU member countries performed recently (this excludes the UK, Norway, and Switzerland). Data is available on the paper and paperboard production level, which excludes sanitary paper and paper converting. As 2015 is the reference year, data for 2019 shows that output ranged about 5% lower than in 2015. Graphics paper would have declined more, but board production did keep the level up. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, paper and board production dropped by 12% compared to 2019, but recovered later in the year. This compares to a 30% drop in the printing industry production, which does not include large chunks of packaging print, however. Overall paper production in 2020 was about 5% lower than in 2019. According to the index, 2021 production bounced back to pre-pandemic levels—even slightly higher. The latest monthly data is from January 2022 and shows a slight drop, possibly due to the mill strikes in Finland.

This data set seems to confirm the claim by paper producers that mills are operating close to normal level.