Plastics Europe welcomes the EU proposal to revise the ETS

The European plastics manufacturing industry, represented by Plastics Europe, has welcomed the European Commission's recent proposal to revise the Emissions Trading System (ETS). The proposed revision sets out a number of key measures intended to support the green transition of the European plastics industry while ensuring that its competitiveness is not undermined.

In particular, while a comprehensive assessment of the overall package is still underway, Plastics Europe has identified five key elements that are considered instrumental to achieving this objective:
- maintaining free allocation beyond 2030 and improving benchmarks for the 2026–2030 period to better support industrial decarbonization; 
- reinvesting ETS revenues back into industry’s decarbonisation trajectories;
- including recognision of circular economy measures as eligible for financing through Member States' ETS revenues;
- extending the ETS to municipal waste incineration;
- recognising non-permanent carbon accounting to support the uptake of bio-based and CCU plastics.
For the European association, these proposals send an important signal that climate ambition and industrial competitiveness must go hand in hand.

“Maintaining free allocation beyond 2030, alongside the Commission's proposal to improve ETS benchmarks for the 2026–2030 period and better reflect industrial realities, will help provide greater investment certainty for Europe's energy-intensive industries. We also welcome the proposal to reinvest ETS revenues back into industry’s decarbonization trajectories, and to extend the ETS to municipal waste incineration. It is particularly encouraging to see that the proposal includes circular economy measures among the activities eligible for financing through Member States' ETS revenues. This is an important signal and recognition that circularity is a key pathway for reducing emissions in ETS sectors. The principle is clear: the ETS should support industry's transition, and the contributions made by industry should be reinvested to strengthen its business case for decarbonisation”, stated Virginia Janssens, Managing Director at Plastics Europe.