China is killing Europe's chemicals industry. Brussels wants to intervene
politico.eu
politico.eu
As does talking about various existing trade policies and carbon markets but not mentioning Carbon Border Adjustments.
"It’s an energy-intensive process — Vynova’s plant uses as much electricity as the entire city of Antwerp — and EU electricity prices for industry are double those paid by its U.S. and Chinese competitors.
The European chemicals sector, like other energy-intensive industries, is also subject to one of the world’s highest carbon prices under the EU Emissions Trading System — currently around €75 per ton of CO2. The industry complains that this adds extra costs that Chinese competitors don’t face."
The Chinese don't have cost advantage in the input cost of ethylene (made from imported oil and gas), but they very much have cost advantage in the energy costs.
Plastics and organic chemicals are not covered by Carbon Border Adjustments.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...
"CBAM currently applies to several basic material goods: aluminium, cement, electricity, fertilisers, hydrogen, and iron and steel."
https://plasticseurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Plasti...
And that is 3x more carbon intensive than ethylene production.
Sound like a decent use case for a Carbon Border Adjustment to protect local business. But they apparently didn't want to make that argument.
Maybe it's a bad idea for some reason the journalist know and didn't feel like telling us.
Maybe it s a good idea for some reason that they didn't feel like telling us.