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Panel 1: The EU Fertiliser Action Plan – Balancing affordability, resilience and transition

The Fertiliser Action Plan from the European Commission aims to address a complex policy triangle: ensuring affordability for farmers, strengthening Europe’s strategic autonomy, and ensuring that European fertiliser producers are fit to transition to low-carbon fertiliser production. This panel will unpack how these objectives interact in practice.

Participants will discuss short-term measures, including support for farmers and enhanced collaboration across the value chain. At the same time, the discussion will explore enabling conditions to maintain and strengthen domestic production capacity, improve access to competitively priced energy and raw materials, and reinforce resilience against global market shocks.

A key focus will be the feasibility of scaling low-carbon and circular fertilisers, including through labelling and creating market incentives.

Key questions to be addressed:

-How to reconcile strategic autonomy, affordability for farmers and EU fertiliser industry competitiveness?
Can affordability and decarbonisation be achieved simultaneously?
-How can Europe strengthen fertiliser resilience without distorting markets?
-What enabling conditions are needed to boost investments in low-fertiliser production in Europe ?
-What role should value chain cooperation play in times of crisis?
-Are proposed lead markets sufficient to drive demand for low-carbon fertilisers?

Panel 2: ETS, CBAM and the Fertiliser Industry – Designing a fair transition

As a highly energy-intensive sector, fertiliser production sits at the centre of the EU’s carbon pricing framework, notably the EU Emissions Trading System and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. This panel will explore how these instruments address the growing competitiveness challenges facing the EU fertiliser sector and consequently the cost pressures affecting both industry and farmers.

Panellists will examine the economic realities of reducing emissions in fertiliser production, where technological options such as electrification remain uncompetitive and long investment cycles - often spanning decades - make the transformation complex. With key policy decisions approaching, the discussion will consider how the revised ETS can support the industrial competitiveness while preserving the integrity and stability of the carbon market.

The debate will also address import competition, the risk of carbon leakage, and the potential impact on food prices. Particular attention will be given to alternative decarbonisation routes, and the need to stimulate demand for low-carbon fertilisers.

Key questions to be addressed:

-Why is fertiliser decarbonisation progressing more slowly than in other sectors?
-In the upcoming ETS Review, how can the EU prevent carbon leakage and ensure that this policy does not undermine the competitiveness of EU industries?
-Should fertilisers be treated as a special case due to their link to food security?
-What policy framework is needed to enable the industry to transition while maintaining production in Europe?

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