EPICO has published a new position paper on the Industrial Accelerator Act, outlining recommendations to create effective lead markets for clean technologies and energy-intensive industries, accelerating decarbonisation while strengthening European competitiveness and industrial resilience.
The Industrial Accelerator Act has been identified as a priority, with European Council leaders calling on co-legislators for an agreement by 2026, and competitiveness increasingly framed as the starting point of EU policymaking.
As IAA delivery is urgently demanded, the position paper outlines the key recommendations to effectively translate it into practice, at a time when European industry remains under pressure from weak demand for low-carbon products, high production costs, and limited economies of scale.
Our recommendations:
- Clarify Union-origin requirements: The scope should recognise products from countries with EU free trade agreements as equivalent to Union content, subject to safeguards, with clearer criteria to identify strategic partners.
- Apply Union-content and low-carbon criteria jointly: These criteria should be applied together, as proposed, rather than treated as alternatives.
- Strengthen procurement quotas for low-carbon industrial materials: The introduction of low-carbon criteria in public procurement for steel, aluminium and cement is welcome, but the proposed quotas are too low to drive meaningful market change. The proposal should include a binding roadmap to progressively increase these quotas over time.
- Design Industrial Acceleration Areas as policy sandboxes but with a strategic scope: These assigned cluster areas should fast-track low-carbon steelmaking, avoid lock-in of high-emitting technologies, and enable circular solutions that enhance competitiveness and resilience, supported by a clearer definition of “strategic activities” excluding high-emitting inputs such as coke and refined petroleum.
- Separating low-carbon steel definitions between the CPR and ESPR may offer a constructive alternative to a 'one-size-fits-all' approach: EPICO has reservations about adopting a 'modified sliding scale' approach for the ESPR Steel label.
- Strengthen lead markets under the ESPR: The Commission should complement public procurement with EU public funding to support low-carbon industrial products such as steel and cement.