The European steel industry warned about inconsistencies in the technical data for the EU Carbon Boundary Regulation Mechanism (CBAM) two weeks before the regime was introduced, Fastmarkets reported on Wednesday, December 17.
The European Commission published the CBAM package of documents on the web portal of its Directorate General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) on Wednesday.The preliminary benchmarks and default values published on the website have not changed from those indicated in the drafts published last week.
The updated CBAM applications were considered technically final, but were still subject to official adoption and publication in the Official Journal of the EU. According to sources familiar with the situation, they were supposed to be published before December 25.
But several European steel industry groups and associations have expressed serious concern that the EU CBAM is moving towards final implementation, which is scheduled in less than two weeks.
Notably, EUROMETAL, the European Federation for the Distribution and Trade of Steel, Pipes and Metals, warned that "CBAM is moving faster on paper than it can be implemented in practice."
"At the end of 2025," says the statement, which Fastmarkets reviewed on December 17, "The European Commission has previously published a large number of detailed CBAM rules for a certain period, which amount to hundreds of pages. However, critical elements of the system remain unresolved, including verification capabilities, final benchmarks for ETS, and handling of precursors such as scrap metal."
EUROMETAL warned that unregulated CBAM regulations and insufficient verification capacity will force many companies to rely on default values, leading to significant, un-budgeted cost increases throughout the steel value chain.
"It is unlikely that hundreds of installations will be checked on time, despite good faith actions," the trade organization said. "This creates a structural mismatch between legal obligations and the reality of exploitation… As a result, companies will be forced to rely on default CBAM values not because of non-compliance, but because verification is unavailable."
Although verification will be legally mandatory from 2026, industry sources have warned that large-scale verification is unlikely before 2027, despite legal obligations.
"There are not enough verification opportunities, especially outside the EU. Many enterprises in third countries will not be ready or accredited on time," a market source said.
