"The EU ETS should be the cornerstone of a new industrial policy" (Joseph Delatte, Institut Montaigne)

"As the Commission prepares to review the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), it should be made the cornerstone of a new industrial policy", writes Joseph Delatte, project manager and climate and energy expert at the Institut Montaigne, in an analysis published on 15 July 2026.

"Given certain structural disadvantages facing the EU, particularly in terms of energy prices, it would be unrealistic to rely solely on market mechanisms and fair competition as a matter of principle: we must transform the ETS into a common European capacity for financing industrial decarbonisation, operational costs and European strategic resilience", he continues.

In his view, the revision of the EU ETS "must not be regarded as that of a marginal regulatory instrument", given that it is one of the "EU’s main…