The European Commission has unveiled a policy package called the Clean Industrial Deal. The plan outlines concrete actions to turn decarbonization into a driver of growth for European industries, including lowering energy prices and creating quality jobs and the right conditions for companies to thrive.
The deal presents measures to boost every stage of production, with a focus on the clean-tech sector as well as energy-intensive industries such as steel, that urgently need support to decarbonize, switch to clean energy, and tackle high costs, unfair global competition and complex regulations.
The main elements of the Clean Industrial Deal are lowering energy costs; boosting demand for clean products; financing the clean transition with over €100 billion to support EU-made clean manufacturing; circularity and access to raw materials; acting on a global scale; skills and quality jobs. The EC will create a Critical Raw Material Centre to jointly purchase raw materials, while it will adopt a Circular Economy Act in 2026 with the aim to have 24 percent of materials circular by 2030.
Commenting on the Clean Industrial Deal, the European Steel Association (EUROFER) stated that, although the deal acknowledges the strategic role of the European steel industry and the challenges it faces, concrete solutions are either left open for later decisions, such as those on global steel overcapacity and loopholes in the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or addressed with incomplete measures. The association stated that, without structural solutions to these issues, initiatives on the circular economy risk being insufficient.