BRUSSELS — An industry petition criticizing the European Union’s core climate policy implied its demands were supported by some 1,350 companies and associations. Now some firms deny they signed up.
Last month, a number of EU leaders — including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron — joined hundreds of industry representatives for a get-together in Antwerp.
There, they were presented with a letter that demanded, among other things, lower “carbon costs” — a call widely interpreted as asking for a weaker price signal under the Emissions Trading System, the bloc’s main tool for reducing planet-warming emissions.
Merz jumped on the demands to suggest he was open to weakening the policy, comments he later rowed back on but not before they crashed the carbon price. Ever since, attacks on the ETS, which obliges factories to pay for their pollution, have escalated, with Italy recently calling for a suspension pending an upcoming reform.
