The European Commission published the Clean Industrial Deal on 26 February 2025, a joint roadmap for competitiveness and decarbonisation aimed at energy-intensive industries and clean technology. The package, set out in Communication COM(2025) 85, was accompanied by an Action Plan for Affordable Energy and promised a sector-specific Steel and Metals Action Plan for the spring. It announced an Industrial Decarbonisation Bank aiming to mobilise 100 billion euros, a pilot auction of 1 billion euros in 2025 for decarbonising key industrial processes, and a voluntary carbon intensity label for industrial products, starting with steel. The deal also set out a Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework to speed approval of support for electro-intensive industries. For steelmakers, the message was that Brussels intended to cut energy costs, create lead markets for low-carbon products and defend European capacity, themes that would be developed in detail in the steel plan published three weeks later.
Source: EUR-Lex — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52025DC0085
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