Peering into the abyss
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I know I have led with this issue before but I make no apology for doing it again. In a sense, it is not just the biggest issue facing the European chemicals industry but the only one: its survival – and indeed that of the many downstream industries it serves.
Ahead of a European Council meeting February, the Antwerp Declaration Community, which represents over 1,300 companies, associations and trade unions across Europe, called on EU heads of state to take urgent action“ to restore Europe’ s industrial competitiveness, safeguard high-quality jobs for European workers and turn the Clean Industrial Deal into outcomes felt on factory floors in 2026”.
Markus Kamieth, president of CEFIC and CEO of BASF, said at the time:“ Europe is losing industrial capacity at a speed we have never seen before. This is not a temporary downturn; it is a structural competitiveness shift affecting all manufacturing sectors. If Europe wants to lead the clean transition, it must stop losing the industries that make that transition possible.”
The participants also urged the European Commission to deliver the Industrial Accelerator Act immediately as a first step“ to show that Europe is serious about its industrial future”. Any delay, they said,“ would only deepen uncertainty and weaken Europe’ s ability to compete”.
Separately, CEFIC has joined many of Europe’ s other energy-intensive industries employing some 2.6 million people, in setting proposals to ensure that the EU’ s upcoming Electrification Action Plan delivers on its objectives to stimulate and boost electricity consumption in industry. Persistently high electricity prices, they warned,“ risk undermining industrial competitiveness and decarbonisation efforts”.
The proposals are headed by having € 50 / MWh as a benchmark goal to enable Europe to compete better and for industrial electrification projects to become viable.“ Electrification is crucial for the industrial transition, but it can only scale if electricity is affordable and predictable,” said Nicola Rega, executive director for climate change and energy at CEFIC.
The German Chemical Industry Association( VCI) has welcomed some recent EU initiatives to reduce energy costs and called on policymakers to“ finally implement the necessary turnaround through further relief measures and systemic reforms”.
Highlighting the depth of the problem, the UK Chemical Industries Association( CIA) has just released figures suggesting that there could be much more to follow the 25 site closures over the past five years, with demand remaining week and jobs being lost. In Q4 2025, 38 % of companies lost headcount and 37 % saw sales fall. Overall 87 % of companies expect at least a year of‘ weak business’.
Sky-high energy costs were the key problem, compounded by net zero targets out of step with other countries. Steve Elliott, chief executive of the CIA, called the results“ totally unsurprising, coming as they do on the back of a near 40 % fall in UK chemical production between 2021 and 2024”.
Hype? Not really. The damage is documented, the problems are structural and any solution must be structural too. Nothing less than the long-term survival of the European chemicals industry is at stake and the loss would be devastating to Europe as a whole.
Dr Andrew Warmington
EDITOR – SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE
MAR / APR 2026 SPECCHEMONLINE. COM
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