The proposed revision of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) is a necessary step, but it will not be sufficient on its own to safeguard Europe’s industrial base - this was the message from Antonio Gozzi, vice president of Italy-based Confindustria for European strategic autonomy, the Mattei plan and competitiveness policies in relations with EU institutions, as he called for a broader and more structured European industrial strategy.
According to Gozzi, European Commission executive vice presidents Raffaele Fitto and Stéphane Séjourné deserve credit for supporting a more pragmatic review of EU decarbonization policies and for pushing the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action to acknowledge that some of the main pillars of the ETS need to be reconsidered. These include the volume of allowances, benchmark levels, the Linear Reduction Factor (LRF) and the Market Stability Reserve (MSR), all of which had previously been treated as largely untouchable.
However, Gozzi argued that the changes currently under discussion remain insufficient, as they do not form part of a broader strategy capable of reconciling Europe’s climate targets with the competitiveness of its industrial sector.
In his view, the EU must move beyond a predominantly regulatory approach and complement the ETS review with a genuine European industrial policy. Such a strategy should support the recovery of manufacturing activity and contribute to the EU’s stated objective of bringing industry’s share of GDP back to 20 percent.
Gozzi also noted that the willingness to reconsider key ETS mechanisms already represents a significant shift from the previous approach. However, he stressed that the next steps will require stronger political intervention from EU heads of state and government and, subsequently, from the European Parliament.
As previously reported by SteelOrbis, Confindustria had already highlighted the impact of rising CO₂ prices on European producers’ energy and operating costs. Gozzi’s latest statement broadens the scope of the debate, shifting the focus from targeted corrections to the ETS toward the need for a comprehensive industrial policy capable of supporting decarbonization without further weakening Europe’s manufacturing competitiveness.
