Polish steel industry representatives have reacted with disappointment to the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal announced this week, due to its lack of concrete measures and short-term energy cost relief.
The long-awaited industrial deal was announced by the European Commission on Wednesday.
Polish Steel Association (HIPH) chief executive Mirosław Motyka says the lack in the industrial deal of a so-called “bridge electricity price” measure for energy-intensive firms is a big disappointment, as is the lack of measures to reduce fees and taxes linked to energy prices.
While the Affordable Energy Action Plan allows member states to lower taxation levels on electricity and eliminate some levies, it poses other challenges. “We see new threats, such as flexibility criteria that energy-intensive industry are unable to meet, as well as already known solutions, such as PPA contracts, which only have limited potential to reduce energy prices for our plants in the medium term,” Motyka tells Wirtualny Nowy Przemysl.
The European Commission is also avoiding indicating the causes of increased energy prices and is not taking any action to reduce them, he adds.
A year has passed since the Antwerp Declaration and yet the Commission “has only presented very general propositions for changes”, Motyka notes. In that time, the global economy has changed and a new US administration is in place, which is redefining the rules of global business. “The EU industry needs real, specific and fast action,” he asserts.
Henryk Orczykowski, ceo of Polish distributor Stalprofil, says the industrial deal lacks fundamental reform of the ETS emissions trading system.
“The current regulations allowing financial institutions and banks to trade emission rights allow for speculation in these securities. This alters the original function of emission rights, which is to encourage emitters to reduce emissions,” he notes.
This also causes the prices of emissions to become inflated. “This has a direct impact on the costs of emissions incurred by the industry and significantly increases the operating costs of the industry in the European Union,” he adds.
Market participants remain hopeful more concrete measures to support the steel industry will be announced in the Commission’s Steel and Metals Action Plan, due for release in the spring. This will be preceded by the Strategic Dialogue On Steel on 4 March, chaired by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Adam Smith Poland
