EU Climate Commissioner Puts Fossil Fuel Import Costs Above ETS as Industry Threat
Wopke Hoekstra's reframing of the competitiveness debate arrives as EUA Dec-rolling holds at €87.63/tCO2 and an ETS revision advances through Brussels.
EU climate action commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told attendees on Thursday (2026-09-10) that costly fossil fuel imports pose a greater threat to European industrial competitiveness than EU carbon prices. "Our companies are paying massively to import fossil fuels," Hoekstra said, according to Montel News. The statement arrived as ICE EUA Dec-rolling stood at €87.63/tCO2 and ICE Endex TTF front-month held at €82.95/MWh on Tuesday (2026-09-15), both well above levels that would ease pressure on industrial emitters.6
The commissioner's framing runs against the grain of months of sustained industry lobbying. European manufacturers have argued consistently that ETS compliance costs put them at a disadvantage against competitors operating without equivalent carbon pricing. Hoekstra, by pointing to fossil fuel import bills instead, is telling industry that weakening the ETS would not solve the underlying cost problem.6
Industry pushback has been organised and specific. RWE chief executive Markus Krebber warned in May (2026-05-21) that parts of Germany's industrial sector faced serious risk without ETS reform, citing carbon costs alongside persistently high energy prices, Montel reported. Italy's Confindustria published ten proposals to curb ETS compliance costs in June (2026-06-10), ahead of the Commission's formal review process. The coordinated nature of that lobbying has already produced one visible result: the Commission floated a slower annual tightening rate of 3.7% in July (2026-07-17), down from the current trajectory.1,3,5
Not all industry complaints map cleanly to financial distress. BASF, a prominent critic of ETS costs, announced plans to buy back €12 billion of its own shares between 2025 and 2028, Carbon Pulse reported. Capital returns at that scale suggest margins sufficient to fund climate compliance and shareholder returns simultaneously. The buyback programme does not negate BASF's argument, but it complicates the claim that the current allowance price is an existential burden.2
The ETS2 extension to transport and heating fuels has opened a separate front. Ten member states signalled concern in July (2026-07-16) that the new regime — designed to cut emissions 42% below 2005 levels by 2030 — risks adding costs to households already exposed to volatile energy prices, according to edie.net. The household dimension is distinct from the industrial competitiveness argument, but both feed into the same revision process, and both give Brussels political reason to at least consider easing the supply trajectory.4
At €82.95/MWh on Tuesday (2026-09-15), ICE Endex TTF front-month gives Hoekstra's argument its current force. Gas remains expensive enough that the import cost line item is real for industrial users. European industry's gas bill is a structural cost, and one over which Brussels has limited direct control compared with its ability to adjust allowance supply through the ETS revision.6
EUA Dec-rolling's trajectory this year has reflected the same tug of war. The contract tested the €80 mark in late May before an afternoon reversal on Wednesday (2026-05-27) left only a 0.9% daily gain, Carbon Pulse reported. The pattern — buyers pushing toward resistance, sellers defending — mirrors the broader policy uncertainty: carbon prices high enough to incentivise fuel switching, but not so entrenched as to be immune to political intervention.2
When the Commission publishes its formal revision proposal, the 3.7% annual tightening rate floated in July sits at the soft end of what the current EUA price implies. Confindustria's ten proposals and the ten member states pushing back on ETS2 represent sustained lobbying that has already shifted the Commission's stated position once. EUA Dec-rolling at €87.63/tCO2 on Tuesday (2026-09-15) embeds an assumption that the framework survives roughly intact. A revision that meaningfully loosens annual supply would reprice that assumption quickly.3,4,5