The European Aluminium association has given its official endorsement to the results of the European Parliament’s plenary vote on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) review, hailing targeted reforms that expand the levy’s product scope, tighten anti-circumvention rules and close critical loopholes for the European aluminium sector.

In a key legislative vote on 15 September, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted to advance the EU’s carbon border levy beyond primary aluminium materials to encompass a broader set of downstream aluminium products. Newly covered items include aluminium fasteners, wire, springs and household goods, a change crafted to stop overseas manufacturers from evading CBAM obligations by importing semi-finished or finished products instead of raw metal.

Alongside widening the product scope, MEPs adopted stricter safeguards against circumvention. The draft regulation’s original 50-tonne exemption threshold for imported aluminium goods has been reduced to 5 tonnes, drastically cutting the volume of low-volume shipments that can enter the EU market without CBAM compliance. Parliament also moved to seal the post-consumer scrap loophole – a gap that had allowed non-EU producers to use post-consumer aluminium scrap to underreport their embedded emissions and gain an unfair price advantage over European competitors.

European Aluminium, the leading voice representing the entire European aluminium value chain, stated that the approved amendments will meaningfully reduce risks of regulatory arbitrage, trade diversion and competitive distortions for EU-based aluminium producers.

Paul Voss, Director General of European Aluminium, emphasised the importance of the parliamentary adjustments in a statement following the vote.“We particularly welcome Parliament’s support for ensuring equal carbon costs between imported and European aluminium across all scrap categories, expanding the downstream product scope, and lowering the proposed 50-tonne exemption threshold for aluminium to 5 tonnes,” Voss said.“The original 50-tonne threshold would have excluded significant volumes of high-value aluminium products from CBAM coverage, despite them competing directly with EU-manufactured goods that bear full carbon costs. Now, negotiators must work with the Council to lock in these critical fixes in the final legislation.”

The European Parliament has confirmed it is prepared to begin trilogue negotiations with the Council of the European Union to finalise the revised CBAM framework. European Aluminium has called on both co-legislators to preserve the plenary’s key amendments during the upcoming talks with EU member states.

As one of Europe’s most energy-intensive industrial sectors, aluminium has been a focal point throughout CBAM’s implementation and review. The proposed reforms aim to strengthen the mechanism’s ability to prevent carbon leakage while upholding fair competition for European producers as the bloc advances its net-zero climate goals.