Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The European Commission adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1373 on June 22, 2026, imposing definitive anti-dumping duties on imports of 1,4-butanediol (BDO) originating from China, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on June 24, 2026. BDO is a chemical intermediate used in engineering plastics (polyurethane, PBT), solvents, and battery electrolyte solvents (gamma-butyrolactone derivative). China is the dominant global BDO producer and the primary source of injurious dumped imports into the EU. The regulation also definitively collects provisional duties previously imposed under Regulation (EU) 2026/270.

The European Commission approved Germany's €3.8 billion industrial electricity price relief scheme (Industriestrompreis, State Aid Case SA.120495) on 16 April 2026 under Section 5 of the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF), covering the period 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2028. The scheme compensates companies in 91 electricity- and trade-intensive sectors for electricity costs above a reference wholesale price floor, subject to a binding conditionality requiring reinvestment of at least 50% of aid in decarbonisation assets within 48 months. The Commission approved the German scheme as part of a coordinated three-Member-State decision also covering parallel Bulgarian and Slovenian electricity price relief schemes, with the combined package totalling approximately €4.22 billion. This is the largest individual CISAF disbursement approved to date, at 11.4× the scale of the parallel Bulgaria SA.120414 scheme (€334m), and establishes the Section-5 upper-bound precedent for EU energy-intensive-industry relief.

The European Commission adopted Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/801 on 9 April 2026, imposing provisional anti-dumping duties on imports of terephthalic acid (PTA, purity ≥99.5% by weight, CAS 100-21-0, CN code ex 2917 36 00 / TARIC 2917 36 00 11) originating in the Republic of Korea and Mexico, published in the OJ on 10 April 2026 and entering into force the following day. Duty rates are exporter-specific: Korean producers face 6.2% (Samnam Petrochemical, Hanwha Impact) to 13.7% (all other), with Taekwang Industrial Co. found not to be dumping (0%); all Mexican exporting producers face a flat 25.7%. The investigation was opened 13 August 2025 following a complaint by EU producer Ineos Aromatics.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 400 million, seven-year loan agreement with Swedish hygiene and health group Essity on 29 January 2026 (EIB project ref. 20210374, "Essity Health and Hygiene Products RDI") to finance research, development and innovation expenditure at Essity's R&D centres in Sweden, Germany and France over 2025-2028. The financing targets product and process development across Personal Care, Professional Hygiene and medical wound care, with emphasis on replacing fossil-based plastics with bio-based materials, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and expanding digital manufacturing solutions; roughly 30% of the RDI spend is earmarked for feminine-care and incontinence-product research. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as a "red"-flagged state-linked lending intervention (state act 96020 / intervention 151945).

The European Commission approved a EUR 227.9 million (USD ~267.1 million) Innovation Fund grant for TotalEnergies Raffinerie Antwerpen N.V.'s "ARCaDe" (Antwerp Refinery Carbon capture and DeNOx) project, with the grant agreement signed on 22 July 2025. ARCaDe was one of six projects — spanning refinery decarbonisation, hydrogen, ocean energy, plastics recycling, and green heat — invited off the Innovation Fund 2023 general-call (IF23Call) reserve list after eight originally-selected projects withdrew from the March 2025 signing round; the six-project cohort was worth nearly EUR 319 million combined. The project targets carbon capture and NOx-reduction retrofits at TotalEnergies' Antwerp refinery, financed via the EU Emissions Trading System.

Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1303 of 23 June 2025, published in the Official Journal on 30 June 2025 and applying from 1 July 2025, amends Regulation (EU) 2021/2278 and replaces the EU's autonomous Common Customs Tariff (CCT) duty-suspension list for agricultural and industrial inputs "not produced in the Union in sufficient quantity." The revision extends or newly grants reduced/zero duty treatment to 79 industrial products across 48 six-digit CN tariff subheadings, while also raising import duties on four specific products: rubber thread and cord (CN 4007.00.00), certain flexible plastic sheets/plates/film (CN 3920.10.89), and fixed vegetable/microbial fats and oils (CN 1515.60.99). The measure is erga omnes (applies to all trading partners, not a bilateral concession).

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/778 of 14 April 2025, adopted under Regulation (EU) No 654/2014 (the EU enforcement regulation for international trade rights), reinstates the EU's 2018 and 2020 commercial rebalancing measures against the United States and adds new countermeasures in response to the second Trump administration's 10 February 2025 Section 232 proclamations, which restored a universal 25% tariff on steel imports and raised the aluminium tariff to 25% effective 12 March 2025 (filed as 2025-02-11-us-section-232-steel-aluminum-global-tariff-reinstatement). The combined package targets approximately €26 billion of EU imports from the United States — matching the scope of US measures affecting EU exports — and combines the reinstatement of pre-existing duties on a first tranche of products (steel, aluminium, agricultural goods, motorcycles, and other industrial items originally subject to the 2018 and 2020 lists) with new duties on roughly €18 billion of additional US-origin goods spanning poultry, beef, certain seafood, nuts, eggs, dairy, sugar and vegetables on the agricultural side, and steel, aluminium, textiles, leather, appliances, plastics and wood products on the industrial side. Tariff rates layer onto MFN duties at up to 50% for some products, mirroring the structure of the 2018 measures. On the same day the Commission published Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/786, which suspends application of Articles 2 and 3 of 2025/778 for 90 days, until 14 July 2025, to allow space for bilateral negotiations following the US 9 April 2025 announcement of a 90-day pause on its own reciprocal-tariff regime (2025-04-02-us-trump-reciprocal-tariff-regime). The legal scaffolding therefore exists and is in force, but no duties were collected during the suspension window. This is the first standalone EU rebalancing instrument adopted against the United States in the second Trump administration and the first major use of Reg 654/2014 since the 2018-2020 Section 232 episode.

Regulation (EU) 2025/40, published in the Official Journal on 22 January 2025 and entering into force on 11 February 2025, replaces the 1994 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62/EC with a directly-applicable Regulation. It mandates binding recycled-content targets for plastic packaging (by polymer and format, reaching 30–65% by 2030 with higher targets by 2040), minimum reusable-packaging shares for beverages and transport, recyclability standards for all packaging placed on the EU market from 2030, deposit-return-scheme obligations for beverage containers from 2029, and bans on specified single-use plastic packaging formats. General application begins 12 August 2026, with staggered compliance windows extending to 2030 and beyond, affecting all non-EU exporters shipping consumer goods, beverages, or e-commerce fulfilment into the EU single market.

The European Commission adopted Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/4 on 17 December 2024, imposing definitive five-year anti-dumping duties on imports of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) originating in China, published in the OJ on 9 January 2025. Duty rates are differentiated by Chinese exporter: €0.25/kg for Anhui Jinhe Star (Gold Star), €0.74/kg for Lomon Billions Group and all non-cooperating exporters, and €0.64/kg for other cooperating producers — converting the provisional ad-valorem duties (14.4%–39.7%) imposed by CR 2024/1923 in July 2024 into specific definitive measures covering CN codes 3206 11 00 and 3206 19 00. China filed WTO dispute DS636 in April 2025 challenging the measure.

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), replaces the 2009 Ecodesign Directive with a cross-cutting product-sustainability framework covering nearly all physical goods placed on the EU single market. It empowers the Commission to adopt binding delegated acts setting ecodesign requirements (durability, reparability, recyclability, recycled content, chemical restrictions, energy and resource efficiency) by product category, establishes a mandatory Digital Product Passport (DPP) for supply-chain traceability, and bans the destruction of unsold consumer products. The regulation entered into force on 18 July 2024; the Commission's first ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan (2025–2030, COM(2025) 187) was adopted in April 2025, prioritising textiles, furniture, tyres, electronics, and iron/steel/aluminium.