Confederation of Swedish Enterprise backs the EU’s ambitious and world-leading goal of achieving net zero by 2050, and we are actively contributing to discussions on how best to meet the EU’s stricter 2030 targets.
At the same time, we see a risk of increasing carbon leakage if the EU moves too fast in relation to other major economies. The proposed Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) may be a way of managing this risk so that the EU can take the lead; i.e., European companies can develop and implement climate-neutral technologies and production techniques without our companies being hit by unreasonable competition from companies in countries with less ambitious climate goals.
CBAM is a difficult balancing act between partially conflicting interests. The aim must be to enable businesses to increase their climate investments without developing a system that is protectionist or weakens European business. In other words, we want to avoid distortive measures for importers and exporters. We believe that current proposals amount to a system that could contribute to the climate transition and probably avoid protectionism. However, we view the EU competitiveness with some concern.