The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group has called on the European Commission to urgently halt and reassess the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), warning that it is driving up energy costs and undermining Europe’s industrial competitiveness.

Speaking in the plenary debate on energy security and affordability, ECR Member of the European Parliament and Vice-President of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Elena Donazzan stressed that while global crises cannot be controlled, the European Union must address policy-driven cost pressures of its own making.

Donazzan said:

“Governments have sovereignty in these choices, so they can do their bit, but what can the Commission do? The Commission can actually do quite a lot.”

She underlined that part of the burden of high energy prices currently facing the Union stems from EU-level decisions.

Donazzan said:

“Some costs which have been imposed on us as a result of certain ideologies are causing problems for our businesses; we can look at those.”

In particular, Donazzan criticised the ETS as a structural cost driver that fails to deliver the intended results.

Donazzan said:

“The ETS is one of the systems that produces more costs than positive effects. The Commission should put a stop to that system because it is expensive and it is not producing the environmental effect that we want.”

The ECR Group reiterates that restoring affordable energy and industrial competitiveness must be a central priority and calls on the Commission to act decisively to reduce policy-driven cost pressures.