The European cement industry has made it clear to MEPs in the European Parliament that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) must maintain free allowances at the level of best performers to achieve real emission reductions, while maintaining a competitive industry in Europe.

Cembureau commented that the proposal should ensure that:
    •    All energy-intensive industries are on the carbon leakage list and all installations receive a free allocation based on ambitious but realistic benchmarks, and benefit from free allocation based on actual production. Fairness should be a key principle of policy making. Jobs in one sector are neither more nor less important than those in other sectors.
    •    Sufficient number of free allocation for energy-intensive industries at risk of carbon leakage is made available, hence the auction share should not be higher than 52 per cent.
    •    No further burden is imposed on EU ETS sectors. The 43 per cent reduction objective and the 2.2 per cent linear reduction factor for phase IV should not be further increased
    •    Support for innovation focus on energy intensive industries and is extended to cover the whole range of low carbon technologies including industrial carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). The Innovation Fund should be fully financed from the auctioning share.

Import inclusion scheme
Regarding the current debate Koen Coppenholle, Cembureau CEO, clearly outlined why the sector does not believe the proposal put forward in ENVI is workable:
    •    Introducing such mechanism with a consequential loss of free allowances creates legal uncertainty and hampers further investments by the cement sector in Europe.
    •    It is impossible to measure the CO2 performance of third-country producers.
    •    There is an overall lack of clarity as to how such scheme would operate.
    •    Serious concerns exist about WTO compatibility.
    •    Application to a few sectors only leads to discrimination in the downstream market where cement competes with other building materials (steel, glass, wood, asphalt) that are not subject to such scheme.
    •    The suggested scheme leads to a competitive disadvantage for European cement producers on export markets where local cement players are not subject to similar CO2 constraints.

Innovation
The cement industry also used this event as an opportunity to provide insight into just some of the research projects being undertaken in the sector which aim to improve our environmental performance, reduce CO2 emissions and improve energy efficiency.