EU prepares CBAM export scheme

Market: Emissions, Hydrogen, Metals
17/03/25

The European Commission is preparing a "solution" for exported goods under the bloc's carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), to be presented before the end of the year. The commission will also expand the scope of the CBAM to "certain" steel and aluminium-intensive downstream products.

The changes to the CBAM will be announced as part of a European steel and metals plan. In a draft of the plan to be formally presented on 19 March, the commission points to the need to address the problem of carbon leakage for CBAM goods exported from the EU to non-EU countries.

The draft also notes that the commission is currently "quantifying" risks, before proposing an extension of the CBAM to "certain" steel and aluminium-intensive downstream products, so as to address the risk of European producers relocating outside the bloc to avoid higher carbon costs.

The metals plan also announces an anti-circumvention strategy for the CBAM to be presented in the second half of 2025. The commission points to the risk of goods from low-carbon production facilities in non-EU countries being redirected to European customers, while carbon-intensive production continues for other markets.

The metals plan also points to the risk of "greenwashing" carbon accounting practices, with "electro-intensive metals production benefiting from market-based instruments to appear low-carbon".

The commission put forward proposals last month to simplify the CBAM, exempting some 90pc of the firms currently covered by the mechanism.

By Dafydd ab Iago

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