CBAM? Kill it.

The EU regulation undermining industrial competitiveness and climate ambition - at the exact moment Europe needs to secure both.

The European Commission is striving to lead the world in the clean and digital transitions, while simultaneously hoping the EU can remain globally competitive.

As manufacturers, we make the very types of technology the world needs to decarbonize. Electric vehicle charging systems and smart meters, for example.

We are - and remain - fully aligned with Europe's ambitions on both these fronts.

Yet there is one European regulation that we believe is simply not fit for the task it has been assigned: the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM.)

It is a rule that charges extra fees on imported goods from countries where carbon is less heavily priced than in the EU. In theory, this discourages companies which are heavy polluters from moving their operations overseas by penalizing those products, thereby helping environmentally friendly products to compete - even if they cost more to produce here.

The problem

In the coming years, there will be increasingly higher costs attached to carbon emissions in Europe. This will drive up the costs of products like steel and aluminium. It will drive the costs up so much that it will make things harder for industries that use these materials: industries like ours.

CBAM is a tool from a different era. It was not designed for the problems that Europe is facing now: that European manufacturers need to be in business at home before they can successfully sell abroad.

As of January 2026, when this regulation is set to come into place, remaining competitive will be considerably harder.

In fact, an European Policy Information Center study published in September 2025 shows that applying CBAM to components and finished products would increase the cost of both, potentially by a significant margin, and erode consumers' purchasing power within the EU. Orgalim would expect this to be up to 50% on certain products and machines.

This impact was not properly considered. Indeed, it is not an overstatement to say that in its current form this piece of legislation will drive manufacturing outside Europe: ironically causing the very thing CBAM was meant to address.

It's CBAM or climate ambition

Hitting the brakes on CBAM's implementation is not abandoning climate goals.

Firstly, CBAM does not cut emissions at source. It changes where the emissions are counted, not whether they are reduced.

A global climate deal with concrete targets and measures is still the preferred option and most efficient solution for the climate and the economy.

Secondly, climate leadership should be about enabling decarbonisation globally.

Europe is remarkably strong in innovation and expertise. But the US and China are faster at rolling new technologies out at scale.

Thirdly, Europe already has powerful tools in place to drive decarbonisation. We need to support innovation funding, strong industrial policies and clean-energy infrastructure.

These will yield greater climate benefits, faster.

The climate targets are not in question: we are questioning the means to achieve them.

Well intentioned changes are still ill conceived

In its defence, the Commission is trying to fix some of the inherent problems of CBAM. Simplifications have been proposed; an extension to downstream products is being considered; a solution for exports is being envisaged. But the fundamental flaws in the scheme won't go away.

Whatever is agreed, CBAM will hit large parts of Europe's industrial ecosystem and risks isolating Europe, provoking retaliation, and narrowing markets for our exporters.

It's time to pull the plug on the whole scheme. Stop the clock; halt the phase-out of free ETS allowances before the end of 2025.

From abstract to credible

The clean and digital transitions are not abstract goals. They are industrial revolutions that require scale, speed, and global reach. Europe's technology industries are ready to invest and deliver, but they need a legislative environment that enables rather than constrains this.

We are not putting competitiveness above climate either. Rather, we are trying to say that a dynamic market for clean technologies is the best and likely most sustainable climate policy: both foreign and domestic.

Let's not retreat from ambition, but let's make a really necessary strategic adjustment to how we achieve that ambition.

Let's rethink CBAM.