Overshadowed by last week’s dramatic geopolitical events in Washington and London, the European Union’s Clean Industrial Deal elicited a muted–if highly contradictory–response from leading European media and stakeholders.
Geographically speaking, it is less than 500 kilometres from Frankfurt to Hamburg. Yet the two cities’ major media are worlds apart, as their sharply different reading of the European Union’s Clean Industrial Deal suggests.
Handelsblatt, Germany’s leading business newspaper based in Frankfurt, reported the European Commission as renegading on its own flagship policy. “EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presents her Business Plan for Europe together with 400 business leaders – and makes a U-turn on the Green Deal,” Handelsblatt wrote after the Ms von der Leyen unveiled the plan last Wednesday.
The move was seen differently in Hamburg. “In the USA, Donald Trump wants to roll back climate and environmental protection. The EU Commission, on the other hand, is boosting the energy transition with an action programme. A good sign in otherwise gloomy times, the liberal weekly Der Spiegel hailed the development. ” ‘Clean, baby, clean’ instead of ‘Drill, baby, drill’ – this could perhaps be used to describe the EU’s message to Trump’s rollback in US energy policy. (…) the EU Commission has once again sharpened its focus on the energy transition this week. (…) Despite increasing resistance, including from right-wing forces within the EU itself, the Commission is sticking to the Green Deal it announced five years ago, which aims to make the EU climate-neutral by 2050. To this end, it presented a new package of measures, the Clean Industrial Deal, in Brussels this week. Energy-intensive industries are to be supported in the green transition and climate-friendly technologies are to be promoted.”
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While the organisations differed sharply in their reading of the new set of European policies, they shared a degree of enthusiasm about the CID. That is more than can be said of most other leading media throughout the continent.
“The EU will stick to its world-leading climate goals, the bloc’s economic competitiveness tsar has vowed, even as it prepares to water down some of the green policies to placate the bloc’s ailing industry,” London’s Financial Times reported. “The EU’s Green Deal, an ambitious set of policies aimed at decarbonising the economy, was launched in 2019 but has since come under assault from European companies complaining of high energy prices and stifling overregulation. Capitals are also concerned about moribund economic growth, while Donald Trump’s bonfire of US climate goals has increased calls for the bloc to rethink its entire approach.”
Not enough and too much
Yet critics were concerned that proposed changes “seem to go far beyond simplification which would make reporting easier, and they seem to be moving away from transparency, which is what investors have been asking”, Heather Grabbe, senior fellow at economic think-tank Bruegel, told the newspaper.
Investors who found fault included Gresham House, the specialist alternative asset manager, FT said. It said that by introducing the broad exemptions and postponements, the EU risked “undermining critical sustainability objectives rather than improving reporting efficiency.”
While the Financial Times refrained from commenting the new plan extensively, it elaborated on what the agenda actually means for Europe’s business. It will “simplify rules for companies that remain in CBAM scope, including those related to the calculation of embedded emissions and reporting requirements; raise the net turnover threshold for third-country undertakings from €150mn to €450mn; revise the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), to cut the number of mandatory datapoints; remove double materiality for reporting; remove the additional sector-specific reporting standards; reduce due diligence checks from annually to every five years; limit the requirement to identify and assess actual and potential adverse impacts to direct business partners, remove the duty to terminate business relationships,” read the newspaper’s comprehensive list of the proposed measures.
Across town, The Economist–once a sister publication to FT–largely ignored the Brussels initiative, mentioning the CID only in passing as part of a global deregulation drive. “Politicians around the world, on both the right and the left, are embracing deregulation. Donald Trump has created a ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk, an entrepreneur, to shrink government and slash red tape. He has also initiated a maelstrom in the civil service. Last year New Zealand set up a “ministry for regulation”, to which citizens can report any “red-tape issue”. (…) the European Commission pledged to cut corporate reporting requirements by 25%, and by 35% for small firms,” The Economist states matter-of-factly, pointing out that deregulation drives usually tend to fail.
The newspaper (The Economist steadfastly refuses to call itself a magazine) mentions the European initiative in one breath with apparently quixotic worldwide efforts to cut through the red tape. “Even countries renowned for their powerful states are joining in. François Bayrou, France’s prime minister, promises ‘a strong movement of de-bureaucratisation’. Vietnam plans to abolish a quarter of government agencies. India’s bureaucracy, a byword for Dickensian obstruction, is slimming down. The push to reform how Western governments operate ‘is potentially bigger than the Reagan-Thatcher revolution’ of the 1980s, argues John Cochrane of Stanford University,” the weekly wrote in what amounted to an eyebrow mildly raised.
Friends and sharp-tongued critics
Others were less restrained. “The regulatory superpower of the European Union agonises that it is falling behind, but in its fugue state, is unable to change course. The response from Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, to Donald Trump contained some honest self-examination last week. But the ‘competitive compass’ she announced ensures that the EU ‘stays the course of the Green New Deal objectives’, including the Clean Industrial Deal,” the sharp-tongued conservative Telegraph wrote in an op-ed article.
Yet another British publication, The Guardian, seemed to put on a brave face, quoting Teresa Ribera, the European Commission executive vice-president in charge of the green transition. “Ribera, the most senior socialist in a centre-right-leaning commission, rejected criticism that the EU was reversing course. ‘We are not deregulating,’ she said. ‘On the contrary: we are coming to the implementing phase,” the left-of-centre newspaper argued.
Less predictably, the CID found some friends in France. The main obstacle preventing Europe and France from innovating lies in labour law, which is “very anti-Schumpeterian”, protecting jobs more than workers, according to economist Yann Coatanlem, in a related opinion piece in Le Monde. “The Draghi report finally seems to have woken Europe out of its torpor: the prosperity of our continent and its influence in the world are in danger. Our formidable assets, our first-rate research, our talents envied everywhere, our traditional industrial flagships are no longer enough. Europe has become a sleeping beauty because it has chosen to turn away from the industries of the future: let us consider that we invest five times less than the Americans in high-tech. It is indeed a deliberate choice, and what is more, a rational one. European companies are literally forced to limit themselves to low-risk activities, at best to make marginal innovation, to improve proven products at the margin. What for,” Mr Coatanlem added some rhetorical flair to the debate.
Elsewhere, the response to the CID oscillated between doubts and indifference. “Commission proposes 100 billion bank to accelerate the green agenda and finance decarbonisation of the sector,” Spain’s leading newspaper El País noted. “The European Commission has decided that reviving the EU’s competitiveness means revitalising industry. But this has a problem: Europe has much more expensive energy than the United States or China; and it is also embarked on ambitious decarbonisation targets for its economy. In short, this is a major challenge that requires a very complicated balance in the current uncertain global geopolitical scenario. In order to advance along this path, the new European executive has made a head start by presenting.”
The American lens
Bloomberg reported the EC initiative with its trademark clinical precision. “The bloc’s executive is under pressure to ensure cheaper energy for companies and to cut red tape at a time when Donald Trump’s reversal on climate goals and stiff competition from China are seen putting European firms at a disadvantage. The plans, including the one to lower energy costs, are poised to show that there is no quick-fix at hand. Environmental groups are already casting efforts to simplify green rules as watering down the EU’s world-leading regulatory standards,” it wrote.
Across the Atlantic, The New York Times saw the development through an American lens. “The commission is trying to simplify regulations that businesses say impede investment and growth. European officials have become increasingly concerned about waning economic competitiveness, particularly when compared with the United States and China. These worries have been exacerbated since President Trump’s return to the White House,” the U.S. newspaper of record wrote.
“Mr. Trump’s push to relax the rules on companies has widened the regulatory gap with Europe. E.U. commissioners also said changes were needed to strengthen the region’s economy, which has been sluggish,” the paper said. The NYT also pointed out the apparently contradictory noises surrounding the initiative. “President Emmanuel Macron of France has been a key supporter of loosening the rules on companies, arguing last month that Europe needed to take a massive regulatory break,” it wrote before mentioning that “in a news conference in Brussels, officials were at pains to say that simplification was not the same as deregulation and was not a sign of giving up on the commission’s green agenda.”
Environmentalists non-plussed
Stakeholders in Europes newly set agenda responded from their predictable points of view. “The Clean Industrial Deal sets a high-level framework that does not go far enough in unlocking the potential of the circular economy,” said Aline Maigret, head of policy at the environmental group Zero Waste Europe.
“To be truly effective, the deal must ensure regulatory certainty, provide targeted investments in green solutions, lead to firm commitments from industries to decarbonise, and have a strong foundation in social justice,” the World Wildlife Fund said with a whiff of self-importance. “However, the CID still lacks a clear long-term vision for tackling the main decarbonisation challenges faced by energy intensive industries, beyond granting them public financial support without any guarantees to decarbonise and maintain or create jobs in the EU,” the institution boasting a panda-graced logo said in a statement.
Critics inluded the lobby group Hydrogen Europe. “Despite some clear positives, Hydrogen Europe and its membership are dismayed to see that, as it currently stands, the CID fails to adopt a truly sector-integrated approach for energy. Its main indicators are still expressed in terms of electrification progress, while cross-sectorial planning – instrumental to achieving a systemic reduction of costs – is almost entirely left aside. By not adopting a true technology-neutral policy, the EU risks failing to deliver a decarbonised, reliable, and affordable energy system,” the group’s statement read.
Likewise, the non-profit organization Carbon Gap called the move “another missed opportunity to set a clear and ambitious roadmap for scaling up carbon dioxide removal in Europe”.
Industry: A sigh of relief, of sorts
Others were more forgiving. Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director-General of DigitalEurope, a trade association that represents the digital technology industry, praised the Commission’s approach but called for further action: “We’re pleased to see the European Commission recognise digitalisation as a key driver of Europe’s clean industrial future. Cutting-edge technologies like smart grids, AI-powered energy management, and digital twins can dramatically improve energy efficiency and reduce costs for businesses. But to fully unlock these benefits, digitalisation must be placed even more firmly at the heart of Europe’s clean industrial strategy. The EU must set clear targets for digital adoption across energy-intensive sectors,” she said. “The Clean Industrial Deal has the potential to make decarbonisation a true driver of growth, but it must go hand in hand with a strong digital push.”
The German industry has broadly welcomed the European Commission’s proposal for securing the future competitiveness of the bloc’s industrial sector, calling the Clean Industrial Deal an important step for combining climate protection and competitiveness. “Only through targeted investment in climate-friendly industry and the pooling of European and national funds can the EU fulfil its role as a global pioneer in climate protection,” said Peter Leibinger, director of industry association BDI. “A comprehensive reduction in regulatory burden must be an absolute priority so that Europe can once again become a robust international competitor,” he added.
Guarded optimism marked the response of another industry voice, the European Chemical Industry Council. “Reading the Clean Industrial Deal, we need the Commission to focus, prioritise the three key actions that improve our situation already this year and put all power, boldness and bravery in the European Commission behind these,” Marco Mensink, Cefic Director General, commented. “And give us a realistic planning for the remaining actions. When we say actions, we mean action, not strategies, policies or plans. Leave no stone unturned and break all taboos. We need the situation to change.”
