As Europe’s biggest industrial players gather in Antwerp, their dominant message is clear: roll back climate and environmental rules in the name of competitiveness. Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe strongly disagrees.
At a moment when Europe should be locking in the industries of the future, the deregulation agenda promoted around the Antwerp Industry Summit and the informal European Council risks repeating the mistakes of the past – delaying investment, deepening fossil dependence and leaving Europe behind in the global race for clean industrial leadership.
Europe’s industry is under real pressure. High energy prices, ageing assets, global overcapacity and delayed investments are already having serious social and regional consequences, including in major industrial clusters such as Antwerp. These challenges are real and must be addressed. But rolling back climate and environmental policy will not solve them. On the contrary, it undermines the investment certainty Europe needs to modernise its industrial base – precisely the transformation called for in the Draghi report and promised through the Clean Industrial Deal.
This debate cannot be detached from climate reality. Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world, already experiencing rising societal costs from extreme heat, floods, droughts and ecosystem loss. These impacts are no longer abstract future risks – they are affecting public health, infrastructure, food systems and economic stability today. Weakening climate action now would not reduce costs for society or industry; it would increase them, while further exposing Europe to fossil fuel price volatility and climate-related shocks.
The real risk Europe faces today is not carbon leakage, but decarbonisation leakage.
Deregulation is not an industrial strategy
The claim that climate policy is the main cause of Europe’s industrial difficulties does not stand up to scrutiny. The structural pressures facing energy-intensive industries are driven primarily by fossil energy prices and global market dynamics, not by climate regulation.
The real risk Europe faces today is not carbon leakage, but decarbonisation leakage. Undermining the EU carbon price will push investment in clean industrial production to regions that are moving faster. Without a strong and predictable carbon price, the business case for clean steel, green chemicals, circular materials and electrified production collapses – and with it, the effectiveness of future industrial policy tools such as the Industrial Accelerator Act.
Calls to dilute the EU’s emission trading scheme would freeze investment decisions, penalise first movers and lock Europe into yesterday’s industrial model at precisely the wrong moment.
What Europe must do instead
Europe does not need deregulation – it needs direction. As set out in CAN Europe’s Clean Industrial Deal position, this means:
- Keeping the core climate architecture effective
Uphold a strong and predictable EU ETS by maintaining the agreed phase-out of free allocations and robust safeguards for a stable, credible carbon price aligned with Paris-compatible clean industry investment needs. Any reforms must preserve climate ambition, especially as rising ETS revenues strengthen governments’ capacity to support climate action, including for scaling up net-zero industries. This must go hand in hand with keeping CBAM intact, avoiding broad or loosely defined exemptions that would undermine its effectiveness and environmental integrity. - Mobilising investment with conditionalities
Use public finance to crowd in private investment for genuine industrial transformation, backed by strong environmental and social conditionalities – including through the European Competitiveness Fund and CISAF state aid – to ensure public support delivers real societal value. - Creating lead markets for clean products
Complement carbon pricing with targeted demand-side measures through the Industrial Accelerator Act, creating predictable and sustained demand for clean products in sectors with the highest climate and economic added value, anchored in mandatory product standards. Circular products minimising Europe’s dependence on imported raw materials and fossil fuels should be rewarded, additionally to low CO2 emissions. - Strengthening governance for a mission-driven industrial policy
Europe needs evidence-based industrial governance, not policy driven by short-term lobbying pressure. An independent EU-level capacity is needed to assess structural trends and industrial transition pathways and to align policy decisions with climate objectives, strategic autonomy and social outcomes – proactively, not through ad-hoc deregulation.
Another path
Industrial policy driven by deregulation has failed before. By clinging to the fossil-based status quo while others invest in more resilient, greener industries, Europe is setting itself up to lose – not just in the long run, but already in the short term.
What we are seeing is not smart implementation or simplification. What we see is greenwashed deregulation, dismantling the rules that not only keep Europe and our planet liveable – but also rules that could push the European industries and economy to be among the winners in the future.
There is another path. An industrial policy grounded in climate certainty, targeted investment and lead markets can still secure a competitive, resilient and future-proof European industry.
If the EU leaders and industries don’t want to do it for the sake of people and the planet, then do it for the sake of the European economy.