The Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) is set to play a key role in shaping the clean transition of European industry—if the EU resists efforts to weaken the policy’s focus on decarbonization. The IAA is intended to accelerate the transition of energy-intensive sectors and speed up energy infrastructure projects. While InfluenceMap's analysis indicates broad corporate support for the policy, two headwinds could derail its efforts:
Other EU policies designed to facilitate the clean transition of Europe’s heavy industries have faced similar pushback. The 2025 Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF) was originally intended to focus on renewables, but following industry pressure, the EU ultimately included substantial support for carbon capture and non-renewable gases, weakening the policy. To safeguard its original vision for the IAA, the EU will need to maintain an ambitious, science-aligned definition of decarbonization and adopt specific measures to curb industrial emissions, including planned CO₂ emissions standards for industrial products and requirements for using low-carbon products in public procurement.
Announced in the Clean Industrial Deal in February 2025, the Industrial Accelerator Act, initially named the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act, aims to support decarbonization and competitiveness for European energy-intensive industries (EIIs), including chemicals, steel, cement, and non-ferrous metals. The policy’s main objectives include:
The EU Commission removed “decarbonization”—one of the IAA’s stated goals—from the policy’s title following a public consultation period. Following three earlier postponements, the Commission plans to publish the policy on March 4, 2026. Repeated delays leave the door open to negative advocacy that could dilute the policy’s stated ambition—a risk underscored by the earlier name change.
InfluenceMap analyzed engagement by entities in the LobbyMap database on the IAA, including 98 questionnaire responses and 42 feedback comments submitted to the European Commission in July 2025, joint letters, and press releases. The LobbyMap database covers 1000 of the world’s largest companies and 350 industry associations. Most assessed companies and industry associations broadly supported the IAA and its goals of promoting industry decarbonization and creating demand for low-carbon products. Of the companies and industry associations assessed that submitted responses to the EU public consultation questionnaire:
At a high level, Europe’s steel, energy, and chemical industries appear broadly supportive of the policy and its goals. Steel entities ArcelorMittal and the European Steel Association (Eurofer) strongly supported a sustainability requirement in public procurement, while Yara International, the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), Shell, Hydrogen Europe, and other actors called for "clear and predictable demand-side measures that go beyond voluntary action” in an October 2025 joint letter. Hydrogen Europe repeated its support in January 2026, urging the EU Commission to introduce the IAA as fast as possible.
The automotive sector stood out as the major exception to this widespread industry support for demand-side measures, including the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), which argued that sustainability requirements would “impact the industry’s competitiveness.”
Despite broad agreement on the need for government support of industrial decarbonization, industry views diverged on what “decarbonization” should entail. InfluenceMap finds that this pattern matches a 2025 debate on the future of EU industrial decarbonization, in which some companies advocated for vague technology neutrality and an expanded definition of decarbonization technologies in the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework. By lobbying for looser criteria for eligible projects, industry actors such as ArcelorMittal and the Federation of German Industries (BDI) attempted to shift the focus from renewables to substantial aid for carbon capture and non-renewable gases. In their comments on the IAA, several entities from the energy, steel, and chemical sectors appeared to recycle this playbook, advocating for vague policy neutrality or transitional technologies:
Because many of these statements use vague language and fail to specify the role of transitional technologies in Europe’s industrial decarbonization, their alignment with scientific decarbonization pathways is unclear. At worst, these calls for “technology neutrality” and broad use of CCS could pave the way for the continued use of high-emitting fossil fuel technologies under the IAA. Within the energy sector, Eni, TotalEnergies, and Snam called for a “technology neutral” approach, while the International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (IFIEC) promoted an energy system that includes gas, hydrogen, and CO₂ networks. In the chemical and steel sectors, some entities wavered on their clear, top-line support for the policy: Cefic and ArcelorMittal both advocated for technology neutrality. ArcelorMittal paired this with a call for the recognition of CCS as a “core decarbonization pathway,” but it did not clarify where and how CCS will be used in the industry to achieve meaningful emissions reductions or how it can complement other industrial decarbonization measures.
Still, these positions do not reflect the majority view in these sectors. A significant number of assessed entities supported ambitious and science-aligned decarbonization pathways for European industry. In their direct engagement with the EU Commission, Enel, Iberdrola, and WindEurope advocated for prioritizing electrification and renewables in the IAA. In an October 2025 letter coordinated by Corporate Leaders Group, companies such as EDF, Volvo Cars, Unilever, SSAB, and Rockwool called for the policy to keep “decarbonisation and electrification at its core.” Beyond the IAA, Ecocem repeatedly called for EU funding to move past “over-reliance on CCUS” to support technologies that “deliver real decarbonisation.”
The European Commission’s initial vision for the IAA included advancing European industrial decarbonization by adopting carbon intensity criteria for low-carbon products. This would start with a voluntary carbon-intensity label for steel that the Commission has indicated could be integrated into other policy instruments, effectively setting a benchmark for EU-wide steel decarbonization. For example, sustainability requirements or quotas for public procurement could adopt it as a definition of low-carbon steel, while the EU’s CO₂ standards for cars could use it to allocate credits to carmakers. The most recent draft of the IAA, however, replaces a dedicated chapter on this carbon-intensity label for steel with a less stringent proposal to establish a “voluntary classification system based on the greenhouse gas intensity of industrial products.”
InfluenceMap’s analysis finds that the majority (66%) of assessed questionnaire responses submitted in July 2025 supported carbon-intensity labels for industrial products. Entities also issued their support for the labels in feedback comments from the public consultation:
But on whether to make the label mandatory—a question the European Commission posed in the public consultation questionnaire—industry responses were more mixed:
In feedback comments supporting a mandatory label, Orsted stated that “voluntary schemes are too dependent on subsidies and long-term political support,” while ArcelorMittal warned that “a purely voluntary approach” might be insufficient to promote low-carbon steel. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emphasizes that regulatory instruments are preferred for “achieving specific mitigation outcomes in sectoral applications” (IPCC AR6 WGIII, Chapter 13.6).
The removal of the low-carbon label for steel from the latest draft of the policy—despite its substantial industry support—follows a recent push led by the EU Commission's Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, to label products as “Made in the EU” under the IAA. Unlike the low-carbon label, the “Made in EU” criteria have no requirements aimed at encouraging industrial decarbonization. These efforts, enabled by continued delays of the IAA’s publication, may have helped divert attention away from the low-carbon label and its goal of incentivizing broader EU decarbonization.
Taken together, the policy’s name change, advocacy to include transitional technologies under the IAA’s definition of decarbonization, and the recent emphasis on products "Made in the EU" indicate that the Industrial Accelerator Act is losing its core focus on decarbonization, undermining the Commission’s originally stated goal for the policy.
