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B100278/2025
P10_TA(2025)0137
European Parliament resolution on the Clean Industrial Deal
(2025/2656(RSP))
PE773.358
European Parliament resolution of 19 June 2025 on the Clean Industrial Deal (2025/2656(RSP))
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the Commission communication of 26 February 2025 entitled ‘The Clean Industrial Deal: A joint roadmap for competitiveness and decarbonisation’ (COM(2025)0085),
– having regard to the Commission communication of 26 February 2025 entitled ‘Action Plan for Affordable Energy’Energy – Unlocking the true value of our Energy Union to secure affordable, efficient and clean energy for all Europeans’ (COM(2025)0079),
– having regard to the report of 9 September 2024 by Mario Draghi entitled ‘On the future of European competitiveness’,
– having regard to the report of April 2024 by Enrico Letta entitled ‘Much more than a market’,
– having regard to the Commission communication of 29 January 2025 entitled ‘A Competitiveness Compass for the EU’ (COM(2025)0030),
– having regard to the Commission communication of 519 March 2025 entitled ‘Industrial Action‘A PlanEuropean forSteel theand EuropeanMetals automotiveAction sector’Plan’ (COM(2025)0095),(COM(2025)0125),
– having regard to its resolution of 15 September 2022 on the implementation of the Updated New Industrial Strategy for Europe: aligning spending to policy,
– having regard to its resolution of 3 April 2025 on energy-intensive industries and the related oral question O-00010/2025,
– having regard to the Commission communication of 11 December 2019 on the European Green Deal (COM(2019)0640),
– having regard to the questions to the Commission [XXXXX],
– having regard to the report of its Committee on Industry, Research and Energy of 13 May 2025 on electricity grids: the backbone of the EU energy system,
– having regard to the question to the Commission O-000020/2025,
– having regard to Rules 142(5) and 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
– having regard to the motion for a resolution of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy,
A. whereas the Clean Industrial Deal was presented at a time of a serious competitiveness crisis; whereas it was supposed to represent the first step towards a decisive shift in pace and approach in EU policies, in order to safeguard businesses and industrial capacity across the EU;
A. whereas the Clean Industrial Deal (CID) aims to bring together climate action and competitiveness under one overarching growth strategy focusing on supporting energy-intensive industries and the clean tech sector; whereas this is much needed, as the transition to a decarbonised and circular economy can only be successful when competitiveness is maintained;
B. whereas European industry is facing fierce competition from global players, with competitors benefiting from public investment, lower energy prices and a favourable regulatory environment, which are factors that provide significant advantages and encourage the relocation of EU enterprises to non-EU countries; whereas in recent decades, the policies pursued by the Commission, causing overregulation in industrial matters and setting unreasonable and unattainable environmental targets, have contributed to the massive relocation of EU production to non-EU countries, resulting in significant job losses, desertification and deterioration of living conditions in certain regions, as well as a transfer of knowledge and increased dependencies in strategic sectors;
B. whereas the Action Plan for Affordable Energy aims to provide affordable clean energy and short-term relief by lowering energy bills while accelerating the implementation of structural reforms and strengthening our energy systems to mitigate future price shocks;
C. whereas the implementation of the Fit for 55 package and other legislation under the Green Deal imposes stringent targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions, which undermine European industrial competitiveness; whereas the policies related to the Green Deal have shown serious drawbacks, especially in the current competitiveness crisis, such that a change of approach, including by revising the targets set and comprehensively reviewing the current legislation, appears to be crucial;
C. whereas European industry is currently facing enormous challenges with high fossil-based energy prices, unfair international competition, lost jobs and skills shortages, leading to scaled-back production, delocalisation and closed sites, thereby increasing our dependency on external suppliers and undermining strategic autonomy, while innovation, manufacturing and associated emissions risk being relocated rather than addressed at source;
1. Notes the publication of the Clean Industrial Deal and the announcement of upcoming initiatives by the Commission; expresses concern about their potential ineffectiveness and the risk of further harming the competitiveness of EU businesses; believes that forcing market change through legislative measures, rather than allowing it to be driven by business-led innovation, is a fundamentally flawed approach; calls for a decisive change of pace from the previous legislative term, including a thorough revision and repeal of pieces of legislation adopted under the framework of the Green Deal;
D. whereas European industry is willing to move towards sustainability, contributing to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, and a future-proof, decarbonised industrial base can offer significant opportunities, but decarbonisation projects risk being shelved because their business case within Europe no longer adds up;
2. Calls, in any case, for the implementation of the economically harmful policies of the Green Deal to be suspended, to enable a re-evaluation of their objectives and application; urges the Commission, moreover, to refrain from proposing a legislative initiative for an intermediate target of 90 % reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2040;
1. Welcomes the Clean Industrial Deal as a long-awaited first step towards strengthening Europe’s industrial competitiveness and innovation, strategic autonomy, decarbonisation, prosperity and clean growth; urges the Commission to swiftly move from strategy to action and implementation; recognises that the proposed actions must be expanded with further measures; stresses that robust and well-targeted industrial policy is crucial to ensure a strong and sustainable industrial base in Europe and to create and maintain high-quality jobs while decarbonising our economy, reducing pollution and strengthening Europe’s resilience;
3. Expresses concern about the way in which the Commission drafts its legislative proposals and conducts impact assessments, which reveals a lack of full stakeholder involvement and in-depth analysis of the effects, including long-term, on competitiveness; stresses the importance of ensuring effective consultation with all stakeholders, including local and regional entities, in order to improve the accuracy of impact assessments, thus avoiding the need to revise regulations shortly after their adoption and reducing uncertainty in an environment already marked by the crisis;
2. Welcomes the establishment of the Industrial Decarbonisation Bank with the aim of mobilising EUR 100 billion in funding, as well as the announced pilot with a EUR 1 billion auction on the decarbonisation of key industrial processes across various sectors supporting industrial decarbonisation and electrification; emphasises the importance of scaling up investment in and access to capital for clean tech manufacturing, including via additional funding through the Innovation Fund; calls for broader participation by the Member States in auction-as-a-service schemes; calls for the adoption of investment criteria based on carbon impact, scalability and security of supply; supports Carbon Contracts for Difference in closing the gap between the carbon price and the cost of industrial carbon management projects for hard-to-abate sectors; considers its establishment as a budget line for deployment of industrial decarbonisation technologies within the governance of the Competitiveness Fund;
4. Urges the Commission to engage in structured sectoral dialogue with industry representatives, academia, social partners and relevant stakeholders from energy-intensive sectors, as well as cross-border regional industrial clusters, to ensure that policies are aligned with real industrial needs and challenges; affirms that well-targeted industrial policy, starting from a review of the EU decarbonisation objectives, is crucial to ensure a strong industrial base and to create and maintain high-quality jobs in the EU; affirms its commitment to fostering stable and predictable industrial policies that take into account the impact on the competitiveness of EU companies, and commits to upholding the principle of technology neutrality when adopting such policies, as a cornerstone for building competitive European industry;
3. Supports the Action Plan for Affordable Energy and its focus on the implementation of the Electricity Market Design, enhancing tools such as Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and two-way Contracts for Difference (CfDs) to reduce the influence of fossil fuel prices on electricity prices; welcomes the pilot programme for corporate PPAs via the European Investment Bank and stresses the need to leverage PPAs to expand capacity and achieve genuine decarbonisation; calls on the Commission to introduce de-risking tools to address the main barriers that energy-intensive industries face in signing PPAs, in particular renewable PPAs, as well as CfDs for risk reduction on the demand side for energy users, and to explore how to stimulate the development of hybrid PPAs with matching flexibility products;
5. Notes the affordable energy action plan; strongly stresses the need for action aimed at reducing volatility and lowering the high energy prices that impact heavily on businesses and consumers; urges the Commission and the Member States, following adequate impact assessments and consultation with the stakeholders, to put forward ways to decouple electricity prices from fossil fuel prices; warns against Commission initiatives that could circumvent Treaty provisions assigning competence over the energy mix to the Member States;
4. Underlines the need to boost energy infrastructure, especially cross-border, including interconnections, and to complete the Energy Union; calls for the pursuit of an ambitious outcome of the future dialogue on deeper electricity market integration, as the current fragmentation of regulatory oversight and investment planning across all Member States is hampering integration and electrification; calls on the Member States, transmission system operators and the Commission to boost cross-border electricity trading so as to unlock the benefits of market integration and improve reliability of supply for all interconnected parties; urges the Member States to strive to achieve the current 15 % interconnection target, as set out in Regulation (EU) 2018/1999;
6. Expresses concern about the overly excessive focus of EU policies on electrification and renewables, which has been reaffirmed with the Clean Industrial Deal; states the need to promote a diversified energy mix that includes clean and low-carbon energy, in order to ensure security of energy supply and competitiveness; emphasises that relying solely on electrification will be extremely challenging for energy-intensive industries; stresses the indispensable role that natural gas will continue to play in the energy mix; reiterates the need to develop measures to ensure gas supply at a mitigated cost and calls on the Commission to ensure an improved, stable and certain regulatory framework; deplores the proposal to eliminate all subsidies for fossil fuels;
5. Highlights the need to finalise work on the revision of the Energy Taxation Directive, which aims to align the taxation of energy products with the EU’s energy and climate policy objectives, and to harmonise a design of tariff methodologies for network charges, provided that such measures do not come at the expense of final consumers; calls on the Member States to urgently provide short-term relief to industry and households, for example by reducing electricity taxes and levies and abstaining from unjustified additional requirements (‘gold-plating’ EU legislation) where this distorts the level playing field;
7. Acknowledges that the electricity grid infrastructure plays an essential role in achieving the EU’s strategic autonomy; calls on the Member States to fully explore, optimise, modernise and expand their electricity grid capacities, including transmission and distribution, with technological neutrality as a core principle; considers electricity grids to be a central element in the transition to a competitive economy;
6. Encourages the Commission and the Member States to improve the coordination of state aid spending on common European industrial priorities and calls on the Member States to make use of this to support industry on the path towards a clean transition, while taking into account different fiscal capacities; reiterates the need for a level playing field; stresses the need for improved coordination of industrial policy across the Union, both among the Member States and between the Member States and the Commission; supports the deployment of the competitiveness coordination tool to guide and align national efforts; considers that public support should contribute to safeguarding jobs and industrial activity in Europe, and that beneficiaries of such support should commit to safeguarding decent employment and working conditions and engage in social dialogue;
8. Recalls the large-scale blackout that affected the Iberian Peninsula on 28 April 2025, leaving over 50 million people without electricity for several hours and causing severe disruption to transport, telecommunications and essential services; underlines that, at the time of the incident, renewable energy accounted for approximately 70 % of Spain’s electricity mix, and that only a few days earlier, on 16 April, the Spanish grid had operated entirely on renewable energy; highlights the fact that the blackout was caused by multiple factors, including the excessively high share of variable renewables, which contribute less to grid inertia compared to conventional power plants, making it more difficult to manage sudden frequency changes; strongly affirms, as a consequence, the need to adopt a technologically neutral approach in the planning, development and strengthening of electricity networks, in order to enable the safe integration of all technologies that support grid stability, especially in the context of growing energy demand; calls on the Member States to strengthen risk assessments related to systemic electricity shocks and to promote resilient, secure and technologically diversified grid models;
7. Endorses simplification and digitalisation to speed up permitting procedures, while respecting environmental safeguards and protecting human health; calls on the Commission to further address permitting bottlenecks for industrial access to energy and industrial decarbonisation in the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act, including through the adoption of measures to accelerate judicial and administrative procedures, and to assess criteria for targeted exemptions for construction emissions and depositions for clean and net zero projects, storage and grid projects; urges the Member States to improve their administrative capacities to ensure timely processing of permits and to fully implement the Renewable Energy Directive, including the overriding public interest principle, and the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA);
9. Stresses the fundamental role that low-carbon hydrogen can play; calls for the swift adoption and implementation of a simple, technology-neutral and investment-friendly definition of low-carbon hydrogen in the upcoming delegated act, while ensuring that such a definition is robust and science-based, and incentivises hydrogen production; recognises that carbon management, including capture, storage, transport and utilisation, can play a role for hard-to-abate sectors;
8. Calls on the Commission to take into account, in safeguarding both security of supply and affordability, all available technologies that contribute to reaching the EU’s climate neutrality goal for 2050 in a cost-effective way in the pursuit of a cleaner, stable, secure and more independent energy mix; recognises that renewable energy, alongside nuclear energy for those Member States that decide to use it, is essential for a clean and secure energy mix; calls on the Commission to strengthen cooperation on the safe development and production of small modular reactors in Europe and to advance research in nuclear fusion as a future energy technology; welcomes the announced assessment of the possibility of streamlining licensing practices for new nuclear energy technologies;
10. Supports the proposal to strengthen a European preference in public procurement processes, in the context of the revision of the public procurement framework in 2026, to the benefit of European businesses; considers this to be essential for enhancing supply chain security and fostering a resilient EU industrial base; remains strongly sceptical about the announced industrial decarbonisation accelerator act and about the extension of new sustainability criteria to the EU budget and national support programmes, as well as to public and private procurement benefiting energy-intensive industries; remains critical of the proposal to introduce new environmental criteria in addition to the many that are already in place, as well as the introduction of environmental labelling for industrial products, which risks creating additional administrative burdens for companies;
9. Stresses the role of electrification, but notes that significant expansion and modernisation of grids are necessary; calls for an ‘EU strategy on energy flexibility’ with a focus on demand-side response and energy storage; welcomes the intention to update the Heating and Cooling Strategy and Electrification Action Plan; calls on the Commission to recognise the energy efficiency sector as a key strategic sector for industrial decarbonisation and European competitiveness;
11. Affirms the need to create a favourable environment for investment that is capable of discouraging the relocation of industrial activities outside the EU; recognises the importance of increasing and encouraging both public and private investment in the energy, industry and transport sectors; takes note of the announced creation of a competitiveness fund and calls for this to be an instrument of genuine support for businesses; calls for an EU State aid framework in support of industrial transformation and modernisation, in line with the principle of technology neutrality, also enabling existing plants to access funding for technology upgrades, thereby safeguarding employment and economic stability; expects the new framework to address these needs; expresses its firm opposition to any new own resources and EU-level taxes;
10. Stresses the important role that renewable and low-carbon hydrogen can play in the decarbonisation of industry; calls for the swift adoption and implementation of a simple, technology-neutral and investment-friendly definition of low-carbon hydrogen in the forthcoming delegated regulation to supplement Directive (EU) 2024/1788 by specifying a methodology for assessing greenhouse gas emissions savings from low-carbon fuels, while ensuring that such a definition is robust, science-based and incentivises hydrogen production and usage to ensure emissions reductions; supports the announcement of a study on the rules for renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs); urges the Commission to take into account the outcomes of this study and the concerns of stakeholders and propose, where appropriate, changes to the delegated act on RFNBOs in order to increase renewable hydrogen production and lower its prices for consumers;
12. Notes the plan for the automotive sector and the measure for additional flexibility for the calculation of manufacturers’ compliance with CO2 emissions performance standards; considers this insufficient and largely inadequate to address the challenges faced by the sector; urges the Commission to promptly review Regulation (EU) 2019/631, particularly by lifting the ban on combustion engine vehicles and removing the sanctions regime; strongly emphasises that technological neutrality is crucial for ensuring sustainable and competitive industry, and calls, therefore, on the Commission to revise the regulation accordingly by fully considering all relevant technological developments, including biofuels;
11. Reiterates the need to develop measures to ensure gas supply at a mitigated cost for those sectors which cannot rely substantially on electrification in the short to medium term; calls for diversified and reliable partnerships in line with the Union’s security, interests and the RePowerEU roadmap;
13. Notes that raw materials supply remains a strategic vulnerability, with the EU heavily dependent on non-EU suppliers for critical raw materials, requiring an urgent scaling-up of domestic mining, refining and battery recycling capabilities in a technology neutral, publicly accepted way; recalls the need to implement the Critical Raw Materials Act and the Net Zero Industry Act properly and to significantly strengthen industrial and raw materials diplomacy to access new markets via trade and partnership agreements, as well as special critical raw materials access agreements; stresses the crucial importance of catalysing investment to develop a domestic supply chain, ensuring its competitiveness and strategic autonomy;
12. Urges the Commission to engage in sectoral dialogues with industries, academia, social partners and relevant stakeholders from clean tech and energy-intensive industries and (cross-border) regional industrial clusters to strengthen their competitiveness and facilitate their transition pathways; stresses that industrial ecosystems are highly interconnected and efficient, where closure of one facility affects the whole cluster; calls for annual monitoring and reporting on the competitiveness and resilience of our industrial ecosystems and on the progress made on the transition pathways, so that instruments can be adapted swiftly with tailor-made support when needed;
14. Stresses that the European Court of Auditors has highlighted the Commission’s inability to achieve the target of capturing 20 % of the global semiconductor market by 2030 through the Chips Act; calls, therefore, on the Commission to confront reality and revise its strategy accordingly, by setting clearer and more measurable objectives, ensuring proportionate and secured funding and promoting the integration of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout the entire semiconductor value chain;
13. Underlines that the success of the clean industrial transition hinges on a skilled workforce; calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop a coordinated industrial skills strategy aligned with the NZIA and clean technology priorities; supports the swift deployment and expansion of the Net-Zero Industry Academies and Centres of Vocational Excellence; encourages the use of EU instruments such as ESF+, Erasmus+ and the Just Transition Fund to support targeted up- and reskilling in industrial regions undergoing transformation, including rural areas;
15. Stresses that EU industry is struggling not only a result of European environmental policies but also because of the overregulation that characterised the previous legislative term; urges the Commission to launch a broad process of genuine simplification and, where appropriate, deregulation; endorses simplification and digitalisation for speeding up administrative procedures; notes the omnibus simplification packages recently presented by the Commission; observes that these highlight flawed or missing impact assessments in the adoption of a number of major legislative measures during the previous term, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive; affirms the need, in the current context of overregulation and excessive administrative burdens, as well as heavy obligations on businesses, to repeal this legislation; underlines, in any event, the importance of safeguarding smaller enterprises;
14. Welcomes lead markets for European-made clean, circular and low-carbon products; underlines the need to stimulate demand through public and private procurement and with the introduction of sustainability and resilience criteria and standards, where appropriate; supports the creation of voluntary carbon intensity labels for industrial products (e.g. for steel and cement), which should reflect carbon performance rather than process bias, and alignment with existing EU legislation, including the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the Construction Products Regulation; calls on the Commission to explore other requirements to guarantee demand for clean EU-made products;
16. Affirms the need to create a truly enabling environment for SMEs, which have been particularly affected by the crisis and represent 99 % of all European businesses; recalls the importance of avoiding any form of discrimination against small businesses that choose to remain small, while continuing to contribute to the economic and social prosperity of the territories in which they operate; calls for accessible funding for SMEs and small mid-caps and further improvements and harmonisation to simplify funding applications, reduce reporting obligations and fast-track small projects; stresses that the new EU-level statute for small mid-caps must not compromise or alter the current classification of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises; underlines that the establishment of the small mid-caps category should not divert attention or resources away from micro and small enterprises, which have distinct needs and priorities; calls, therefore, on the Commission to adopt the necessary measures and safeguards, and to establish thresholds that reflect the actual conditions regarding turnover and number of employees in the Member States;
15. Welcomes the proposed actions powering the circular economy and the bioeconomy by securing access to materials and resources; encourages the inclusion in the Circular Economy Act of measures to increase the use and affordability of strategic secondary materials within the EU, taking into consideration the aims of the Critical Raw Materials Act; stresses the need to define those secondary raw materials that are strategic and that should be subject to export monitoring, such as steel and metal scrap, and to tackle any imbalance in their supply and demand, including by exploring export restrictions; insists on the effective enforcement of the Waste Shipment Regulation; calls for a predictable regulatory framework that unlocks circular business models, particularly those based on waste prevention, reuse and high-quality recycling;
17. Notes the proposed simplification of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) in the first omnibus package; recalls that the CBAM was introduced to compensate for the effect of the EU emissions trading system (ETS) in order to tackle carbon leakage; underlines that the CBAM, as currently designed, in parallel with the phasing out of the ETS free allowances, will not ensure a level playing field and will undermine competitiveness by increasing production costs and the administrative burden for EU companies; calls for the ETS and the CBAM to be entirely reassessed in the upcoming revision;
16. Stresses the need to protect the European market from unfair competition and the dumping of industrial overcapacity from non-EU countries by using trade defence mechanisms to their full extent; calls on the Commission to adopt a systematic, proactive and proportionate use of trade defence instruments, including anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations; demands that the enforcement capacity of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation be strengthened, and regrets that this tool has not yet been activated systematically in key sectors; calls for the Commission to treat industrial overcapacity and strategic dependencies as core competition risks requiring a coordinated EU-level response and appropriate tools; calls on the Commission to ensure that access to the EU internal market or to European industrial projects is not granted to actors contributing to structural market distortions or unfair competition;
18. Expresses concern about the ongoing negotiations on the reform of Regulation (EU) 2019/452, which establishes a framework for the screening of foreign direct investment into the Union; is particularly concerned about the excessive centralisation of control in the hands of the Commission at the expense of the authority of Member States, including those that already have effective national measures in place to protect strategic sectors that are crucial to national interest; underlines that national security and maintenance of public order are, in fact. exclusive Member State competences;
17. Welcomes the proposed simplification of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in the first omnibus package as an important step to further enhance the effectiveness of the CBAM to address carbon leakage; reiterates its call for a workable export solution to address the risk of carbon leakage for CBAM goods exported from the EU to non-EU countries; asks the Commission to analyse carefully the risks associated with unverified certificates from outside the EU, which could harm fairness and competitiveness; welcomes the Commission’s intention to present an anti-circumvention strategy before the end of the year, and to consider extending the CBAM to additional sectors as part of the upcoming review; underlines the importance of an effective CBAM in the context of phasing out the free allowances in the EU emissions trading system;
19. Stresses the critical importance of preserving industrial activity and employment in the EU; warns that misguided industrial policies can have severe repercussions on jobs; underlines the urgent need to equip the European workforce with the necessary skills to adapt to the ongoing digital and industrial transformations, especially in remote and rural areas; calls for increased investment and a comprehensive industrial skills strategy; calls for the adoption of effective measures to address the alarming phenomenon of brain drain;
18. Welcomes, in the context of the implementation of the Industrial Carbon Management Strategy, building the business case for permanent carbon removals into upcoming (reviews of) legislation; recognises that carbon management, including capture, storage, transport and utilisation, may be needed for hard-to-abate sectors; underlines the need to propose a CO2 market framework package for CO2 transport and infrastructure;
20. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.
19. Urges accessible funding for SMEs; welcomes accelerated approval and disbursement in instruments such as the Innovation Fund and the NZIA and stresses that the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) initiative needs to be accessible to SMEs; urges further improvements and harmonisation to simplify funding applications, reduce reporting obligations and fast-track small projects;
20. Stresses the importance of sector-specific approaches to effectively implement the Clean Industrial Deal across the full range of industrial ecosystems; welcomes the Industrial Action Plan for the Automotive Sector, the Steel and Metals Action Plan, the announcement of the Chemicals Industry Package, the Sustainable Transport Investment Plan and the Bioeconomy Strategy as key building blocks of a coherent industrial transition; calls for the Sustainable Transport Investment Plan to include detailed decarbonisation strategies, reflecting the specific technological and investment needs for the different modes of transport; calls for the inclusion of other sectors, such as the European aerospace sector and alternative fuels, in the framework of the Clean Industrial Deal; calls for a specific action plan on clean tech;
21. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.