The new ETS targets are too stringent for the aluminum sector

Developments in the sector do not follow a single path to decarbonization

The European Aluminium industry association has openly warned that the new ETS targets for 2026–2030 may prove too stringent for some sectors of the European aluminum industry. Maros Durka, regional sales manager at Poland’s Grupa Kęty, highlights this point.

In his view, this discussion is necessary because a dangerous gap is beginning to emerge between the bloc’s climate ambitions and industrial reality.

If Europe wants to avoid deindustrialization, the expert notes, the new targets should meet criteria roughly as follows:

• a specific benchmark for aluminum processing, as it has a completely different technological reality,
• differentiated treatment of various processes (primary aluminum, remelting, rolling, etc.), as they do not follow the same decarbonization path,
• reflection of commercially available technologies in the benchmarks,
• a slower reduction of free allowances where there is no real alternative,
• support for investment rather than mere punishment—the ETS cannot function solely as a “stick,”
• protection of the European processing system from carbon leakage,
• realistic alignment of the ETS and CBAM.

It should be noted that, according to the European Aluminium position paper published in May of this year, the sector operates under conditions that fundamentally limit the effectiveness of unilateral carbon pricing—aluminum is traded globally, and its prices are set on the London Metal Exchange (LME). Furthermore, the metal is produced using energy-intensive or highly energy-intensive processes with limited commercially viable breakthrough technologies available in the short and medium term.

“Without targeted reforms, the ETS risks accelerating deindustrialization, reducing investment, undermining the circular economy, and replacing low-carbon European production with more carbon-intensive imports,” European Aluminium noted.

They believe that the ETS should evolve into a system that simultaneously supports decarbonization, industrial resilience, and strategic autonomy, while retaining tools that have proven effective in preventing carbon leakage.

As a reminder, six countries are asking the EU to protect heavy industry from carbon emission costs. The Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Greece, and Slovakia have called for an increase in the number of carbon allowances within the ETS.