Trilateral Chemical Region welcomes the CCA Charter and calls for urgent action to restore the investment climate for EU Chemicals Production

Statement to the Critical Chemicals Alliance (CCA) Charter

The Trilateral Chemical Region (TCR) welcomes the adoption of the Charter to restore the investment climate by the Critical Chemicals Alliance (CCA) and calls for its rapid translation into concrete action at European, national, regional and company level.

As Chair of the CCA Working Group 3 on Modernisation and Investments, the TCR coordinated an intensive collaboration between the European Commission, industry, national and regional administrations and civil society organisations. The Charter provides a common European vision on how to secure the future of Europe’s critical chemical value chains.

The Charter comes at a critical moment for Europe’s chemical industry. Production sites across Europe are facing unprecedented competitive pressure driven by high energy costs, global overcapacity, regulatory burdens and growing international competition. At the same time, the sector is expected to deliver substantial investments in decarbonisation, circularity and strategic resilience.

The Charter is built around three complementary missions: Survive, Modernise and Accelerate. Together, these missions recognise that Europe must simultaneously preserve existing industrial strengths, facilitate investment in current production assets and create the conditions for the next generation of low-carbon and circular chemical production.

The TCR calls on the European Commission to urgently assess the recommendations of the Working Groups and identify where further refinement or targeted policy action may be appropriate. The TCR supports the importance given to integrated industrial clusters and interconnected value chains, fully acknowledging the importance of these interconnected sites and ecosystems which are a key feature of the chemical industry in the trilateral region.

In addition, the TCR supports the call to accelerate trade defence mechanisms and calls for a significant increase in staffing at DG Trade's "Office of Complaints" to enable faster and more consistent implementation of measures such as anti-dumping and safeguard actions while always taking into consideration the effects of measures across integrated value chains and downstream industries.  

The Charter recognises that the future of the European chemical industry will depend on restoring investment attractiveness. Significant investments are required to modernise existing assets, deploy low-carbon technologies, enhance circularity and develop the infrastructure needed for industrial transformation. The TCR therefore supports the Charter's call for both targeted CAPEX support for industrial modernisation and transition investments, and temporary, well-targeted OPEX support mechanisms. The TCR further supports the translation of the WG3 CCA Charter into a coherent investment and competitiveness agenda for the chemical industry as a structural contribution to the European Competitiveness Tool (CCT). In this context, the TCR supports the establishment of a dedicated Public-Private Initiative under the next MFF to accelerate the modernisation of the European chemical industry, align and reinforce EU, national and regional funding streams, and mobilise private and institutional finance.

The TCR welcomes the extensive work of the CCA on market pull instruments. The results demonstrate the difficulty of developing measures across and within different end markets that effectively and efficiently support the transformation of the complex chemical value chain without replacing market-based competition. Incentive-based approaches should, therefore, be prioritized to strengthen the sector. Against this background the TCR calls on the European Commission to further prepare and consider the identified options in its policy work in close coordination with relevant customer industries.

The Charter is also closely aligned with the findings of the 3C-VaCS (Value Chain Structures) study, commissioned by the Trilateral Chemical Region and published in June 2026.

The Trilateral Chemical Region remains committed to working with the European Commission, Member States, regions and industry partners to transform the Charter’s recommendations into concrete action that serve the competitiveness and resilience of the entire chemical value chain.