EU Heads of State and Government meeting in Brussels on 23-24 October reached an agreement on the 2030 climate and energy framework. Cerame-Unie issued a position paper ahead of the Summit in line with the letter from the Alliance of European energy-intensive industries.

The package includes the following targets:

• At least 40% domestic reduction in GHG emissions;
• A binding EU target of at least 27% for renewable energy;
• An indicative target of at least 27 % for energy efficiency, with a revision in 2020 “having in mind an EU level of 30%”.

ETS sectors will have to reduce their emissions by 43% compared to 2005. To that purpose, the annual reduction factor will increase from 1.74% to 2.2% as of 2021. The ETS will be reformed with an instrument to stabilise the market in line with the Commission proposal.

In order to preserve the competitiveness of EU industry, free allocation will continue after 2020 to prevent the risk of carbon leakage due to climate policy. The benchmarks for free allocations will be periodically reviewed in line with technological progress in the respective industry sectors. Both direct and indirect carbon costs will be taken into account, in line with the EU state aid rules so as to ensure a level-playing field. The most efficient installations in these sectors should not face undue carbon costs leading to carbon leakage. Future allocations will ensure better alignment with changing production levels in different sectors.

The EU ETS currently covers more than 1,200 ceramic installations, representing around 10% of total installations but less than 1% of emissions