ERCST’s webinar outcome on BAM (25 Nov. 2020)

On November 25, the ERCST (European Round Table on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition) held a webinar to summarize the results of the Commissions consultations on CBAM.

The general outcome is fundamentally convergent with the submissions of FACE:

• CBAM is not fit for the aluminium industry.
• Public consultation and FACE’s views are fundamentally convergent.
• FACE stresses again the need to support the competitiveness and sustainability of the EU aluminium industry by zeroing import tariffs on our raw materials.

ERCST pointed out aluminum industry, saying that the industry is against the inclusion of aluminum in the scope of CBAM, since it is not applicable to it in its current form.

The Commission (a representative of DG TAXUD participated in the webinar) will not publish submissions of stakeholders, however, it presented common summary of answers and provided the schedule of the future work:

• 609 stakeholders participated in the consultations (83% were Europeans);
• The majority believes that CBAM will be able to meet its main goals;
• Out of the 4 proposed CBAM formats, the majority voted in favor of import tax and consumption tax (like VAT), the least number of participants voted for the expansion of the ETS on imports;
• Scope of emission should cover direct and indirect emissions and international transport of goods;
• 47 stakeholders voted for inclusion of non-ferrous metallurgy in the scope of the mechanism, but the majority, including representatives of the EU industry did not selected aluminium in the list of economic activities (NACE);
• Key implementations issues: carbon footprint assessment, independent 3rd party verification, circumvention risks, exemptions, export rebate;
• Most of the respondents are concerned about the impact of CBAM on the downstream sectors: increased costs, higher prices for consumers, jobs losses.

Based on the responses to the questionnaire and positions of stakeholders, the Commission prioritized tasks for the next stage of work on CBAM: assessment of the economic and environmental impact of CBAM, technical aspects (carbon footprint calculation, etc.), balance the burden between importers and exporters, data processing and verification, retaliation measures, determination of the sectoral scope of the CBAM, alignment with ETS, etc.

According to the schedule of the EC – consultations with stakeholders will continue, in the spring of 2021 there will be a Green Taxation Event, where options for the mechanism will be discussed.

Eurometaux, in its position, stated that the aluminum industry has already been severely affected by carbon leakage and is currently the most vulnerable to further leakage. The Association urged the European Commission to develop separate regulatory mechanisms for the non-ferrous metallurgy industry, in particular, to ensure the creation of a separate market for trade in low-carbon goods.

Click here to download:
EU commission slides on the “Open Public Consultation Responses – Carbon border adjustment mechanism”
Position of Eurométaux on the ERCST round table