Antwerp, 26 February 2025
Thank you, dear Dr Kadri, for the invitation.
Prime Minister De Wever,
Minister-President Diependaele,
Dear representatives of European industries and social partners,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a pleasure to be back with you here in Antwerp, exactly one year after our first meeting. Last year, I came to Antwerp to listen, to listen to your worries. It was a new start for industrial policy in Europe at that time. Since then, we at the Commission held dedicated dialogues with most of your strategic sectors, including a social dialogue just last week.
And I must tell you, I am very grateful for these dialogues because the results have shaped the priorities of my new Commission. Today we approved in College the Clean Industrial Deal. The Clean Industrial Deal, if you look at it, delivers on each and every one of the ten recommendations in the Antwerp Declaration. Your central demand was to make a clear business case for Europe.
And I am willing to do that. But before I address the challenges, let me start with a quick view on the strengths that we have in Europe. Europe has got talent. We produce one-quarter of all clean tech patents in the world. That is more than both the US and China. Europe has top-class infrastructure, and we are investing in it. Take for example the hydrogen sector. Last year, final investment decisions on electrolysers in Europe have quadrupled compared to the year before. That is the fastest growth worldwide. Europe has a clear roadmap, and we stay the course. Last year, our emissions from the energy sector went down by almost 10%, while the consumption of energy went up by 1%. And yes, we are on track to achieve our 55% emission reduction target for 2030. And this gives you the predictability you need to plan your investments.
At the same time, I know that too many obstacles still stand in your way. Prime Minister, you have mentioned some of them, from the structurally too high energy prices to excessive regulatory burden, without any question. We know all too well that production costs have increased, specifically for energy-intensive industries. The demand for clean products has dipped, and some investments have moved to other regions. So, we must turn the tide. And this is the central goal of the Clean Industrial Deal. We want to cut the ties that still hold you back. So that Europe can not only be a continent of industrial innovation but also a continent of industrial production.
I want to highlight four areas on how we plan to do this. First, we have to and want to invest more than ever in innovation. It is actually one of the demands in the Draghi report: Close the innovation gap. Europe is a frontrunner for example in the global race for clean tech. Let me give you three figures. Here in Europe, we have 30% of all innovative companies in electrolyser technologies worldwide; we have 20% for carbon capture and storage; and even 40% for wind and heat pump technology. This is where we can really beat global competition.
But I know that too often, these companies struggle to grow, and to bring their solutions to industrial scale. This is where the problem sits. So what do they need? First and foremost, they need access to capital, to finance. And I will not speak about completing a deep and liquid capital market today. The capital markets union is absolutely paramount for us. But they also need public investment.
As a first step, we will make our European financing instruments much stronger. Our Innovation Fund has financed many groundbreaking projects, including here, in the Port of Antwerp. But we also see that every call of the Innovation Fund is heavily oversubscribed, and we have to turn down many of your good projects. So this has to change. Therefore, we will mobilise up to EUR 100 billion to establish a new Decarbonisation Bank. We will soon launch new auctions on industrial decarbonisation, building on the very successful model that you all know, the Hydrogen Bank. So the Decarbonisation Bank is the same principle as the Hydrogen Bank. Important is that this is a market-based system that rewards the most innovative and most competitive companies. This is just what we need – we need competition, we need them to be innovative, but they need access to finance. We will finance them with resources from our Emissions Trading System. The message you gave me last year was loud and clear. You said: This money that comes from the industry should be reinvested in the industry. That is exactly what we are doing now. So we are coming back to the promise we gave you last year.
In addition, we will present a new State aid framework. State aid for decarbonisation and clean tech will be approved faster, it will last longer, and it will give you more predictability to speed up innovation. And let me tell you: I understand very well that in state aid it is not only about European competition, but it is also global competition. So we have learned the lesson of the last mandate, we have to change and adapt the framework, and we have to be faster and more predictable for all of you.
There is one innovative sector I want to focus on in particular – and that is circularity. Europe clearly has a first-mover advantage here. One-third of all circular technology companies are European. And I know that some of them are present here in the room. If we look at figures, more than 50% of our steel, iron, zinc, or platinum are made from scrap. And this covers more than 25% of European consumption. But we need to go faster and further. For instance, China controls 80% of the global battery recycling capacity. And we still send huge volumes of precious waste back to China. Instead, end-of-life batteries could provide almost 15% of the lithium we need already in 2030. That is enough to produce 2 million batteries for electric vehicles.
So, we need a paradigm shift on circular economy. To support this movement, we will present a Circular Economy Act. We have to keep critical raw materials waste in Europe and give it new life. This is not only good for the planet, it also supports our open strategic autonomy.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The second pillar of the Clean Industrial Deal is simplification. We are delivering on the promise I gave you last year. Simplification is vital to Europe’s competitiveness. So today we have presented our first two omnibuses. The omnibus substantially cuts reporting obligations on this magic triangle that is Taxonomy, CRSD, CSDDD, and we also added CBAM. This could save up to EUR 6 billion every year for European companies. This is more than the annual budget reduction target we initially set.
What are the figures? If you look at CRSD and CSDDD, around 80% of the companies will be excluded from the scope of the CSRD and the CSDDD. Around 90% of companies will be exempted from mandatory taxonomy. And our CBAM proposal will exempt 90% of importers. Now you can say, what about the carbon footprint? Let us look at the figures: Together, these 90% of companies that we are exempting now from CBAM are responsible for less than 1% of import volumes and its associated emissions. So, the climate impact of this change is minimal. But the positive impact on SMEs is huge.
And more simplification is on its way. I want to repeat my call I did my last year: If you come with good and doable suggestions, we are grateful for that, we want them, and as you see, in the first omnibuses we included already a lot of what you wrote to us. A fleet of omnibuses will target red tape and administrative burden in a number of areas. But let me be clear. Our climate and social goals do not change. Because our commitment to the social market economy is unwavering. The social market economy is the foundation of our European Single Market. Because the young people would never forgive us, if we did not rise to the challenge of global warming. And finally, because you, the industry, need predictability. In other parts of the world, we are now seeing the impact of political U-turns for investments. We are staying the course towards our decarbonisation goals. But on the way towards these goals we will be adaptable, flexible, pragmatic and technology neutral. This session here today is the proof of the beginning of this attitude.
The third priority of the Clean Industrial Deal is to bring energy prices down. You all said it, they are structurally too high. Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels is the main cause of these higher and more volatile energy prices. The more we have to import fossil fuels, the more dependent we are on the global market. We have to bring these prices down. Of course, we do not start from scratch. Since the launch of the European Green Deal, we have saved EUR 60 billion of fossil fuel imports. How was this possible? Because of the low carbon approach; thanks to cheap, homegrown renewables; and as a baseload, nuclear. But we need more predictable prices than we have today. It is good that we have reduced them, but we need much more predictable prices and structurally lower prices. So, we need more connections across Europe, more energy offtake and more energy efficiency. All of this and much more is at the heart of the so-called Affordable Energy Action Plan that we also have presented today and that accompanies the Clean Industrial Deal.
The Affordable Energy Action Plan is about accelerating the roll-out of clean energy and electrification. It is about ensuring well-functioning gas markets, we sometimes have quite strange distortions of the gas market, and it is about completing interconnections and grids.
Earlier this month, I was in Lithuania to celebrate with them their newly won energy independence. They finally decoupled their electricity grid from Russia and coupled it into the European Union grid. For the Baltics, this is not only about energy. This was very deeply about sovereignty. It is vital and it is strategic. We should do the same on our entire continent: connect our energy systems, upgrade our grids, speed up permitting – I speak to myself and all my colleagues in the political functions –, and make our low-carbon energy available all across Europe. We will systematically, with this Affordable Energy Action Plan, remove remaining obstacles, so that we build a true Energy Union.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The last priority of the Clean Industrial Deal I want to mention is to adapt to a harsher global competition. To remain open to the world, that is so important, that has always been the hallmark of the European Union. Seizing the new opportunities that are there and connecting to growth centres.
Since taking office last December, the new Commission has been delivering on this commitment. In the first week of December, we finalised a groundbreaking partnership agreement with Mercosur. Before Christmas, we concluded one with Switzerland. In January of this year, we concluded trade negotiations with Mexico, and we launched negotiations with Malaysia. We are also negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with India. Tonight, the College of Commissioners will travel to India to strengthen ties and expand trade with the world’s largest democracy. We have many friends around the world that want to do business with us, and my function is to enable and ease this business for you with other regions of the world.
Europe has been an industrial leader for centuries, because we have always managed to ride the wave of change. Our industries have constantly renewed and remodelled. By families, who passed on their knowledge from one generation to the next. And by disruptors, who dared to leave the old path for the new one.
Today, we stand again at a watershed moment in our history. I know that, together, we are ready for change. So that the future of industry can continue to be made in Europe. And next year I would love to come back, to report on what we have done in between, to listen to how your reality was in between.
Thank you very much for inviting me, and long live Europe.
Source – EU Commission