{"id":278377,"date":"2026-02-11T08:20:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/278377\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T08:20:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:20:06","slug":"european-chemical-giants-plot-to-weaken-eus-flagship-climate-policy-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/278377\/","title":{"rendered":"European chemical giants plot to weaken EU\u2019s flagship climate policy \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chemical investments in Europe collapsed by more than 80 percent in 2025 from the year before, according to a recent report from CEFIC<\/a>, while capacity closures continue to outpace new projects \u2014 turning Europe into a place to shut plants, not build them.<\/p>\n

Analysts say China’s rapid expansion into chemicals production is adding pressure. “European producers are especially hit, largely due to high energy costs and a reliance on uncompetitive liquid feedstocks, with the least competitive assets continuing to post negative margins,” said Andrew Neale, global head of chemicals at S&P Global Energy. As a result, he said, “longer-term investment in decarbonization and circularity have been deprioritized.”<\/p>\n

Dow\u2019s recent investment decisions illustrate this well. The American chemical giant plans to close three plants in Europe and cut 800 jobs, citing the need to exit \u201chigher-cost, energy-intensive assets\u201d as the continent\u2019s competitiveness erodes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very clear that Europe currently suffers from a lack of competitiveness,\u201d Julia Schlenz, president of Dow Europe, told POLITICO, warning that carbon costs and regulation are moving faster than the infrastructure needed to decarbonize.<\/p>\n

As the bad news keeps coming, the sector has increasingly called for the ETS to be weakened. In July last year CEFIC published its demands<\/a>, including the issuance of free carbon allowances, a longer timeline for phasing out emissions, and the inclusion of carbon removal credits. BASF’s Kamieth, who is also president of CEFIC, repeated those calls this week in an interview<\/a> with the Financial Times, calling the ETS in its current form “obsolete.”<\/p>\n

Member countries and the European Parliament have already agreed to consider these proposed changes in the upcoming review of the ETS. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chemical investments in Europe collapsed by more than 80 percent in 2025 from the year before, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2300,12682,12683,40605,51802,12688,607,156238,8556,4596,8557,537,146339,12694,156339,1686,12700,156340,1667,12701,8573,273,114547,149,1223,3215,156341,2454,1702,1426,1224,156342,220,45022,43015,111,139,69,4156,156343,3693,640,12718,147,2437,12914,7496,145,8566,584,1430,12723,376],"class_list":["post-278377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-asia","tag-borders","tag-buildings","tag-carbon","tag-carbon-removal","tag-chemicals","tag-china","tag-christian-stocker","tag-companies","tag-competition","tag-competitiveness","tag-crisis","tag-dan-jorgensen","tag-decarbonization","tag-decarbonizing","tag-electricity","tag-emissions","tag-emissions-trading-system","tag-energy","tag-energy-prices","tag-energy-security","tag-environment","tag-eu-affairs","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-germany","tag-imports","tag-industrial-processes","tag-industry","tag-infrastructure","tag-investment","tag-italy","tag-jutta-paulus","tag-markets","tag-meps","tag-natural-gas","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oil","tag-peter-liese","tag-plastics","tag-regulation","tag-rights","tag-science","tag-security","tag-solar-energy","tag-tax","tag-technology","tag-the-netherlands","tag-trade","tag-united-states","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}