Welcome to the September edition of Metals Monthly!
As we are all fully back in the swing of work, it almost seems redundant to mention the summer holidays that I hope most of you managed to take. Nevertheless, this strange lull in political activity gives us a short opportunity to reflect on what has happened over the past 7 months, and more importantly to plan the crucial next few months as we now head on the home straight to the end of 2026 and Christmas.
I am delighted that our newly elected President Inge Hofkens has outlined the coming priority issues that we face in her Editorial and her expectations around what needs to be done to make Europe successful for metals production. It’s a must-read!
Mentioning our expectations about what Europe should do for our industry, we are pleased that Paul Voss, Director General of European Aluminium, has written an article for us about the latest developments on export measures for aluminium scrap. The direction of travel has raised our concerns and it's important that what happens next truly lives up to the promises that have been made to protect our industry from third countries who are not playing by the rules.
In a busy period for policy priorities, it is also vital that we reflect on the ETS and what is happening for our industry under the proposal that dropped just before summer. Lucia Verardi, our Energy Manager, will take you through its implications and impact, and also explain why this proposal is not going to work for our sector.
Enjoy the read and enjoy the rentrée!
Dr James Watson
Director General of European Metals
Editorial
Building on strengths
I take on the Presidency of European Metals at a moment when the forces shaping our industry are shifting faster than our institutions are used to. Geopolitics now sets the terms for energy, for trade, for where capital goes to build the next plant. Materials that used to be background inputs have become instruments of power. None of this is temporary, and pretending otherwise would be the fastest way for our industry to lose ground it will not get back.
The scoreboard makes the point better than any speech could. China already controls the lion's share of global critical minerals refining. Around 90% of rare earths, roughly 60% of copper processing, and more than 70% of cobalt — built on over $120 billion in state-directed overseas mining and processing investment since 2023. The United States has answered with real capital: a reasonable estimate puts at least $7.5 billion in direct federal appropriations behind critical minerals, backed by loan and guarantee capacity approaching $100 billion under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Europe, by comparison, is working with €3 billion under RESourceEU and an EIB ambition to mobilise around €6 billion in CRM investment by 2027 — not small numbers, but next to Washington and Beijing, not yet proportionate to what is at stake.
My heartfelt thanks to Evangelos Mytilineos for four years of leadership that never confused ambition with delivery, and the membership for placing their trust in me at this moment.
Europe has real strengths, but also a habit familiar to anyone who has sat through enough strategy documents: we are better at naming ambitions than at engineering the conditions for them. Nowhere is that gap more visible than in energy. For an industry like ours, energy is often the single factor that decides whether the next investment lands in Europe or somewhere else. That disadvantage has not closed, even as competitors move ahead with new capacity at a scale that dwarfs what remains of ours.
If Europe wants its metals production to stay European, energy competitiveness cannot be treated as one file among many. It has to be the test every other policy is measured against, including how we calibrate decarbonisation instruments so that ambition and industrial reality move in the same direction rather than pulling apart.
This is also where I see our association's real strength. Our credibility rests on being right on the science and right on the ground, at the same time. On chemicals, our depth on REACH is why the Commission and Member States come to us — and with the REACH text staying closed while focus shifts to targeted, evidence-based fixes, that expertise matters more, not less.
On sustainability and circularity, our command of the technical detail, from the Non-Ferrous BREF to the standards that decide what "best available" actually means in a real plant, is what keeps our environmental ambitions financeable rather than theoretical.
And on trade, in a world where access to materials is used as leverage, our job is to keep Europe's processing base open to the inputs it still needs while protecting it from unfair competition and the leakage of the very scrap it should be recovering.
Chemicals expertise, technical sustainability, energy realism and trade access are one argument, made consistently, about what it takes to keep production in Europe.
That argument runs directly into the Circular Economy Act coming this autumn. Done well, it is the biggest opportunity our sector has had in years — turning Europe's own waste streams into a genuine, secure source of raw materials instead of watching valuable copper and critical metals leave the continent for others to process and sell back to us. That is what "Europe for Europe" means in practice, and it depends on treating our raw materials market as the single market it is meant to be, and on producers, transformers, recyclers and users working from the same facts rather than defending separate corners of the value chain.
This strength doesn't belong to one part of our membership. I have spent thirty years watching this industry's real expertise sit as much on production floors in Poland, Bulgaria and the wider Central and South-East as in Hamburg, Antwerp or Brussels. That strength is already there; what I want is for our association to make it as visible in how we speak as it already is in what we produce.
I look forward to working with all of you.
Inge Hofkens
President of European Metals, COO Multi Metal Recycling, Aurubis
Europe cannot afford further delay on aluminium scrap
Earlier this month, the European Commission changed course on aluminium scrap.
The planned export duty to tackle the historic outflow of scrap from the EU was abruptly put on hold amid a wider geopolitical context. Executive Vice-PresidentStéphane Séjourné has instead proposed a broader ban on exports of waste, including aluminium scrap, to non-OECD countries under the EU Waste Shipment Regulation. Changing course now means losing more time on a problem that has already been left unresolved for too long.
EU scrap exports reached almost 1.3 million tonnes in 2025 and have continued to rise in 2026, with around 80% going to Asia. Scrap prices in Europe have also risen significantly, putting mounting pressure on recyclers and downstream users.
Competition for scrap is intensifying for good reason. Recycled aluminium can generate up to 95% fewer CO₂ emissions than primary production, making scrap an increasingly valuable strategic input for decarbonisation. In Europe, recycling already supplies around 40% of aluminium consumption.
But Europe is not competing for that material on a level playing field. Buyers in third-country markets can operate under lower environmental and labour standards, while subsidies and wider trade distortions add to the pull on European scrap. And many of those same markets are taking steps to keep their own scrap at home. China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates already restrict aluminium scrap exports in different ways. While Europe still debates how to secure its secondary raw materials, others have already acted.
European industry has acted too. More than €700 million has been invested in recent years to expand and modernise recycling capacity, adding around one million tonnes across the EU and EEA. Those investments followed years of clear political encouragement to recycle more, decarbonise faster and strengthen Europe’s resilience. Companies responded. They now need access to the feedstock those investments were built to process.
Without adequate access to scrap, European recyclers face structurally higher costs, weakening competitiveness and delaying decarbonisation. That in turn undermines the climate, industrial and strategic objectives Europe is trying to achieve, while putting substantial recycling investments at risk.
This is why the Commission’s last-minute reversal is so difficult to accept. After a year of constructive engagement on a concrete solution, abandoning the planned measure at such a late stage raises serious questions about the credibility and predictability of the policy process. The Commission had itself committed to targeted measures on aluminium scrap to address global imbalances and maintain the competitiveness of Europe’s aluminium industry.
We recognise the Commission’s efforts to explore other policy tools, including the Waste Shipment Regulation. But we should be clear about their limits. This cannot replace an effective trade response.
Europe now needs to put an effective trade measure firmly back on the agenda, with broad enough product and geographical coverage to make a real difference. The problem has been analysed. The evidence is clear. What is missing now is action.
Further delay is simply not acceptable.
Paul Voss
Director General, European Aluminium
Free allocation: “Free cash for industry”? Not quite.
The review of the EU ETS Directive landed on everyone’s desk on a rather unusual Friday morning, 17 July, just as Brussels was getting ready to head off for the summer holidays. That Friday already seems like history: mid-September has been extremely intense when it comes to ETS discussions. And it did not take much reading to understand that the new regime of conditionalities for free allocation would become one of the main battlegrounds of this crucial review.
On the one hand, there is the idea that the era of “free money” for industry is over. On the other, industry is trying to explain that this era never really existed. So, what is actually behind these conditionalities? And why does the Commission’s proposal risk hampering investments rather than accelerating them?
But let’s start from the basics. What is this free allocation that industry receives?
Free allocation is one of the tools the EU uses to protect industries at risk of carbon leakage, namely the shift of production (and associated emissions) from Europe to countries with weaker climate policies. Besides the resulting loss of jobs and economic activity in Europe, this can also increase global greenhouse gas emissions, hardly a success for climate policy.
Under the EU ETS, installations exposed to this risk therefore receive a proportion of their emission allowances “free of charge”. But free allocation is not a blank cheque. It is based on EU-wide benchmarks that reward the most efficient installations, while conditionalities linked to energy efficiency and climate-neutrality plans apply, as sort of incentives to improve emissions performance.
With its July proposal, the Commission wants to go significantly further, with the stated objective of turning free allocation into a tool to both protect industry and drive investment in Europe. A win-win, right? Unfortunately, looking more closely at the details, the risk is that the proposal achieves the opposite.
Under the proposed regime, eligible investments would have to correspond to 100% of the economic value of free allocation, be implemented in the EU and deliver significant emission reductions at installation level over the five-year allocation period. This alone raises numerous questions. What constitutes “significant” emission reductions, particularly for an installation that has already substantially electrified? How do you invest in technologies that, in some cases, do not yet exist at commercial scale? And how do you fit major industrial investments into a five-year cycle which, in industry time, is considerably shorter than it may appear in Brussels?
This brings us to the fundamental issue. Free allocation risks becoming a conditional investment mandate, losing sight of its original carbon-leakage purpose. Mandating investments where they are not technologically or economically viable will not magically make those investments happen. Instead, it risks further undermining industry’s competitiveness at an already difficult time.
One concept is too often missing from this discussion: enabling conditions. Affordable energy, infrastructure, competitive technologies and a viable business case are what ultimately unlock industrial investment and decarbonisation.
Conditionalities are set to remain a battleground throughout the upcoming ETS negotiations, keeping policymakers busy in Plux and around the heavily criticised Schuman Roundabout. But there will be no winners, inside or outside Brussels, if we do not get this revision right for European industry.
Lucia Verardi
Energy & Climate Change Manager, European Metals
Join the 6th Edition of the Metals Academy
We are living through a period of profound transformation. Geopolitical developments, shifting economic dynamics, evolving business strategies, and societal changes are reshaping priorities, objectives, and business models across industries.
The 6th edition of the Metals Academy (18–21 May 2027) will explore how the metals sector can successfully navigate this changing landscape, adapt to emerging challenges, and seize new opportunities by building on its strengths and capabilities.
Bringing together leading voices from industry, academia, and beyond, the programme will provide valuable insights into the forces shaping our future. Through high-level keynote presentations, expert discussions, interactive workshops, and practical learning modules, participants will gain a broader perspective and develop actionable approaches for their own organisations and careers.
More than a training programme, the Metals Academy is a fully immersive residential experience. It offers a unique opportunity to engage directly with professionals from across the metals value chain, exchange ideas, expand your network, and build meaningful connections in a relaxed and inspiring environment. Set in a green and welcoming location, the Academy combines professional development with the warmth of Belgian hospitality and enjoyable social activities.
If you would like to be part of this stimulating and forward-looking experience, we are now opening applications for the next cohort of participants. To ensure a high-quality and interactive learning environment, attendance is limited to 40 participants, and we therefore strongly encourage early pre-registration.
We welcome professionals of all backgrounds and levels of experience, from those new to the industry to experienced practitioners, looking to broaden their perspective and strengthen their network.
Aurubishas relocated its global headquarters to HafenCity, moving around 650 employees into a new, modern office designed to improve collaboration, efficiency and sustainability.
HydroEnergi AS and Varberg Energi have signed a pilot agreement for a hybrid power supply, under which Varberg Energi will provide Hydro with electricity from its own wind and solar generation, complemented by energy storage capacity.
Atlantic Copper has inaugurated CirCular, a project worth more than €550 million to integrate advanced metals recycling into its industrial operations.
The project will recover copper, gold, silver, palladium, platinum and nickel from end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment.
Upcoming European Metals Events
Metals Day| 29 September 2026 | European Parliament (Brussels)
On 29 September 2026, European Metals will bring together representatives from across its membership, European institutions, civil society and the media for the 2026 edition of the Metals Day, hosted for the first time at the European Parliament offices in Brussels.
Throughout the day, three panel discussions organised around breakfast, lunch and dinner will focus on key EU policy priorities and the challenges facing Europe’s metals value chains.
The event sessions will be hosted by MEPs Radan Kanev, Yannis Maniatis, Hildegard Bentele, and Bruno Tobback.
Metals Day will provide members with a valuable opportunity to engage directly with European policymakers, exchange perspectives and contribute to the discussions shaping the future of Europe’s Metals industry.
Please note that Metals Day 2026 is an invitation-only event, reserved exclusively for European Metals members and invited guests.
2027 Events – Save the Dates
European Metals is thrilled to announce that some exciting events are on the horizon for 2027, and we want you to be part of it! Mark your calendars not to miss what we have in store!
Further information and registration details will be available here soon.
Health, Environment and Chemicals Senior Policy Advisor Lara Van de Merckt will speak on 9 October on “Getting substances/starting composition on the EUPLs”.
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