European Container Glass Federation urges EU leaders to act swiftly to safeguard European industry

The European Container Glass Federation (FEVE), represented at the European Industry Summit taking place today in Antwerp by its President Michel Giannuzzi, Chairman of Verallia, fully supports the Antwerp Call to Action and calls on European leaders to take urgent and bold action to safeguard Europe’s industrial base.

Glass is a strategic enabling material at the heart of Europe’s green and industrial transitions. With 140+ plants in 21 EU Member States, the container glass industry plays a vital role in providing healthy, reusable, and infinitely recyclable packaging for key European sectors – food, beverages, perfumery, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Products packed in glass contribute around €140 billion to EU exports annually, making glass packaging a pillar of Europe’s export strength and global brand leadership.

Yet today, the European glass industry is under severe structural pressure. Persistently high energy costs, rising carbon costs and an increasingly challenging global trading environment are weakening investment conditions across the continent. For container glass in particular, production has declined sharply from its 2022 peak, and plant and furnace closures are taking place all over Europe, resulting in permanent losses of industrial capacity, strategic skills and high-quality jobs.

We recognise the European Commission’s efforts through the Omnibus packages and the Clean Industrial Deal. However, there remains a significant gap between political ambition and industrial reality on the ground. Based on industry calculations, the 2026 update of EU Emissions Trading System benchmarks could, for some companies, double CO₂-related costs between 2025 and 2026. Such cost shocks risk undermining investments and decarbonisation efforts. Industry therefore calls for urgent stabilising measures, to avoid sudden cost increases while preserving Europe’s climate ambition.

As Giannuzzi clearly put it:

“There is no resilient, nor safe, nor strong Europe without a strong European industry. The container glass sector is fully committed to delivering Europe’s climate and circular economy ambitions, and we are investing heavily in decarbonisation technologies. But industry cannot deliver the transition alone. EU leaders must act now to bring energy and carbon costs down, accelerate grid deployment and simplify the regulatory framework. This is not for next year, not for next week, but for today.”

In line with the Antwerp Declaration Community, FEVE urges EU policymakers to swiftly implement a package of Emergency Industrial Policy Measures focused on four areas:

• Bring energy and carbon costs down: The costs of energy in Europe are simply too high to compete and are not only driven by commodity prices but also by regulatory charges.

• Focus on circular economy objectives that make sense from a competitiveness point of view, avoiding overregulation and reconsidering past policy choices such as overly prescriptive packaging minimisation objectives that weaken, rather than strengthen, Europe’s industrial competitiveness.

• Supports fair global trade and fight against unfair competition: while free trade agreements are vital to enable access to new markets and increase exports, bolder action is needed against unfair competition to ensure a real level playing field for EU industries both on the domestic and international markets, including carbon leakage protection.

• Strengthening consumer demand for safe, circular products made in Europe through appropriate and well-designed market incentives.

With the right framework conditions, the European glass sector and the container glass industry in particular can fight to remain both a global leader in circular packaging and a pillar of Europe’s industrial strength.

Sources:

• FEVE – Relevance of the Container Glass Industry Report (2024)
• FEVE Production Data
• Ernst & Young – Economic Impact of Container Glass (2015) FEVE Internal Production
• Monitoring – F&B Container Production History Dataset

FEVE