Today a company can relocate its industrial production to a country with more lax environmental legislation than that of the European Union, obtaining greater benefits because the costs in that territory will be lower.
Starting in October, this dysfunction will disappear with a kind of tariff that Europe will impose on imports of products that have been manufactured without complying with the regulations imposed by the EU. It will be the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). CO2 is a colorless, odorless gas made up of oxygen and carbon that is primarily responsible for global warming.
The expected collection is 0.1% of the GDP of the 27 countries of the Union, which is equivalent to some 14,500 million euros per year. These are calculations by Michael Keen, from the University of Tokyo, in a study published by the Institut d’Economia de Barcelona (IEB), a think tank of the University of Barcelona (UB). José MarÃa Duran-Cabré, director of the IEB-UB, reflects that the mechanism “means equalizing conditions between European companies and others, by establishing a tax on imported products equivalent to the domestic tax burden.”
But this strategy is not without some collateral damage. In general terms, if the advantage of relocating to non-EU countries disappears, developing countries lose investment. While in Europe the report places the “regressive impact” of this tax on households with fewer resources as the main negative consequence. Northwestern University professor Diego Känzig points out that “a key transmission channel of carbon pricing policies is that they cause energy prices to rise.”
After this first direct effect of reducing disposable income, there is an indirect one, details the academic in the report: “To the extent that the higher prices of energy are reflected in the prices of other products, the cost of living goes up more generally.†And all of this affects the poorest households “more disproportionatelyâ€.
Where the impact will also be noticed is in companies. Joan Tristany, general director of the business association Amec, details that “once the mechanism is fully operational in 2026, importers of the Union of these products will have to obtain authorization from a mechanism authority and acquire corresponding carbon certificates. to the carbon price that would have been paid to produce the goods in the Unionâ€. Although the system to be followed has yet to be defined, sources from the Tax Agency maintain that they will not be the ones who will collect the fee in Spain. One possibility is that the person in charge of managing the certificates or rights is the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Instead, ministry sources maintain that it is still not clear what the mechanism will be like.
Raquel Pous, from Amec’s advisory service, explains that although the mechanism will be launched in October, there will be an adaptation period until January 2026. The association ensures that five product ranges will begin to be recorded first: cement, electricity, fertilizers, iron and steel and aluminum. The Council of Europe has already announced that the tax will end up also applying to plastics or chemicals. A priori, importing companies will buy certificates based on their expectations for the whole year. The unspent certificates at the end of the year may be repurchased, but only 30%, explains Pous.
In the IEB report, Aarhus University professor Mikael Skou Andersen questions whether now is the best time with the energy crisis to implement a new tax. In his opinion, the increase in energy prices in Europe is due, to a large extent, to the way in which the internal energy market is regulated. Today, prices are set according to the marginal price system, in addition to adding the price of emission rights. The professor proposes separating the energy sources.
