CIRFS presented key recommendations from a recent report by Mario Draghi aimed at promoting sustainable textiles in Europe while ensuring the competitiveness of the value chain and safeguarding the remaining industrial base:
- Policy coherence and funding: The EU needs much greater coherence between trade policy, industrial policy, and environmental policy to preserve the existing manufacturing base and secure a viable future for its industrial value chains. This includes ensuring complementarity and proper implementation of the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) and the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). Investment and government spending was identified as the key to safeguarding the EU's competitiveness and promoting innovation.
- Reducing energy prices and securing the decarbonisation path: The incoming Parliament, Commission, and EU Member States must act swiftly to lower energy costs to under 5 ct/kWh during the transition phase and create a unified EU market for pricing and grid infrastructure. CIRFS supports using EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) revenues to fund the transition to carbon-neutral industries, fast-tracking Carbon Contracts for Difference (CCfD), and delaying the reduction of free ETS allowances if CBAM is ineffective. Addressing carbon leakage risks and developing export support solutions should also be prioritised.
- Circularity and environmental regulations: Establishing a true Single Market for waste and recycling in Europe is fundamental for scaling up recycling and circularity in apparel and textiles. Bureaucratic barriers must be removed, responsibilities clearly defined, and environmental regulations applied equally to imported products. Non-compliant imports threaten public health and recycling efforts. Effective compliance controls and unified end-of-life disposal costs across EU member states are essential, with a gradual increase in costs to encourage recyclability.
- Strengthening trade defence instruments (TDIs): CIRFS welcomes the strategic application of TDIs, including ex-officio investigations, to address economically irrational and non-market excess capacities in the complex and fragmented textile value chain. It calls for abolishing the outdated lesser-duty rule, integrating social and environmental standards into trade rules, and adopting clear and decisive border measures like those in the US and Canada.
- Level playing field and enhancing market access: Mario Draghi's report highlights the EU's role as the largest open market, but CIRFS notes this openness is not reciprocated globally. Countries like India impose barriers on European fibres and textile imports. The EU must adopt equivalent border measures to ensure a level playing field and enforce all regulations on businesses selling in the Single Market, regardless of location.
- Reducing dependencies is the only way forward: CIRFS backs Mario Draghi's recommendations for developing a genuine EU foreign economic policy. It urges stricter rules of origin in trade agreements to boost bilateral trade, especially with Turkiye and the US and reduce dependencies. It recommends the EU introduce an explicit minimum quota for locally produced products and components (including fibres, textiles and apparel) in public procurement and contracts for different auctions. The EU is further advised to build its industrial defence and infrastructure capacities by relying on European value chains and domestic production.
Lastly, CIRFS reiterated its call for strengthening the EU's industrial value chain, from fibres, and textiles, to apparel, to reduce reliance on external sources and avoid "risky" dependencies.
In May, new research by the UK national standards body, BSI, indicated that progress towards net zero could be jeopardised, as nine in ten UK businesses are calling for greater government support to help meet their decarbonisation targets, and half of them cite cost as a significant barrier.
