At the European Industry Summit 2026 in Antwerp, over 500 business leaders, factory workers, and top European officials came together to emphasise the critical need for a strong European industrial base to secure the continent’s future.
Jan Moström, President of Euromines and Group President and CEO of LKAB, highlighted the importance of raw materials for Europe’s prosperity, security, and clean energy transition. He stressed that energy costs and Europe’s electricity market design, which results in high prices, are major barriers to investment in electrification and decarbonisation.
During the summit, Moström met with Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, to discuss Europe’s industrial strategy and raw materials. Key takeaways included:
Key Priorities for Europe's Industrial Future:
- Strategic Autonomy & Permitting Reform: Europe needs a strong domestic production base to reduce dependencies and drive the green transition. While Circular economy is a key pillar of Europe’s strategic autonomy and will increasingly support the supply chain, it alone cannot meet near-term demand. With many key commodities not yet available at scale to re-enter the loop, policy must ensure a balanced approach combining circularity and responsible domestic production. This requires a permitting omnibus and coherent demand-side measures that make the legislative framework an enabler, not a bottleneck, unlocking the full raw materials value chain from mining to recycling while strengthening industrial competitiveness.
- Access to Finance: Europe must leverage the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to provide targeted incentives and tools that unlock both private and public investment across the raw materials value chain, ensuring strategic autonomy and a competitive, sustainable industrial base.
- Energy Competitiveness: Raw materials production is highly electrified and energy intensive, yet Europe’s electricity market design drives structurally high power prices that weaken competitiveness. A well-functioning energy market that delivers affordable, clean baseload power is essential to maintaining Europe’s attractiveness for long-term industrial investment and achieving both strategic autonomy and climate objectives.
Moving Forward:
- A permitting omnibus rooted in a structural legislative review of trade-offs and bottlenecks – not only simplification of administrative procedures.
- A financial framework that sets the right incentives: funding for raw materials to ensure a cost-competitive and responsible domestic production, demand stimulation for European responsible raw materials and a strong mandate for the upcoming Raw Materials Centre.
- A reform of the electricity market design that improves the marginal price-setting to reward those who electrify to decarbonise.
The Antwerp Declaration Community is calling for Emergency Industrial Policy Measures to address these challenges and ensure Europe’s long-term competitiveness.
Read our press release here.
Antwerp Declaration for an Industrial Deal
Read about the Antwerp Declaration for an Industrial Deal here.