20
May
2026
Watch
Reviewing the ETS system to support European competitiveness (topical debate)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure today to remind sovereignists that decarbonising is not just about climate, but about autonomy, resilience and security. Even a child understands this: less fossil fuels, more efficiency and less reliance on debt traps, budgetary bottlenecks and tight and dangerous passages. Just like Hormuz. Today, does Europe trapped by carbon dependency really want to erase the ETS? Does Europe really want to remain under the strain of markets, speculation and petromonarchies? Our fragility is not aggravated by decarbonization, but precisely by those who have not achieved it and continue to hinder it even today. In Italy, in just 12 years, ETS 1 has generated 18 billion euros, of which only one and a half spent on renewables and industrial efficiency. ETS 1 revenues come from industry and industry must return: not an indigestible and unproductive tax, as some Member States do for current expenditure, but an investment dedicated to the future of industry itself. This was and must be the purpose of ETS 1.