Gerber Group calls for the suspension of CBAM and genuine protection for importing SMEs
Riegel/Brussels, 10 June 2026 – The Gerber Group warns of the consequences of the planned EU implementing act on the deduction of carbon prices paid in third countries under CBAM. What is officially intended to prevent double burdens threatens, in practice, to do exactly the opposite: companies will have to surrender CBAM certificates even where carbon costs have already been incurred in the country of origin – because Brussels ties relief to conditions that many companies simply cannot meet in practice.
“CBAM is unfinished, unworkable and an incalculable liability risk for small and medium-sized importers,” says Thorsten Gerber, CEO of the Gerber Group. “The Commission is demanding compliance with a system whose calculation bases are flawed, incomplete or not yet available at all. Anyone threatening sanctions must first provide a correct and calculable basis.”
From the Gerber Group’s perspective, it is particularly critical that the deduction of foreign carbon prices depends on an entire chain of conditions that are largely beyond the importer’s control: actual emissions data, cooperative suppliers, accredited verifiers, qualifying foreign carbon-pricing systems, correct transmission through the registry and correct default values. If just one link in this chain breaks, the importer loses the relief in full – while still bearing the entire cost and sanction risk.
“That is not climate policy; it is the outsourcing of risk to SMEs,” says Gerber. “Large corporations have compliance departments, market power and political access. Small and medium-sized companies get forms, liability and threats of penalties. This does not protect Europe’s industry; it protects entrenched large structures from competition.”
The Gerber Group therefore calls for CBAM to be suspended or postponed by at least twelve months, preferably 24 months, until all default values have been corrected, calculation methods published, templates made operational and verification infrastructure put in place. In addition, a genuine SME safe harbour is needed: anyone relying in good faith on certified reports or official default values must not be sanctioned for errors or omissions by third parties.
“Brussels must not first build an unfinished system and then make SMEs pay for its design flaws,” says Gerber. “Anyone who wants to prevent double burdens must make relief practicable – not block it with another 100 pages of bureaucracy on top of the already existing 3,000 pages of CBAM.”
The Gerber Group has submitted a contribution to the “Have your say” consultation on the “Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) – carbon price paid in a third country”, which closes on 10 June 2026.
Gerber also criticises the Commission’s “Have Your Say” procedures as such. “These consultations may appear open on paper, but in practice they are barely accessible to citizens or small and medium-sized enterprises, far too little known and, by their very structure, intimidating,” says Gerber. “It is one thing for the Commission to know who has submitted a comment. However, it is quite another to force citizens and businesses to expose themselves publicly when they criticise regulatory shortcomings. Participants must have the option of remaining anonymous to the public. Otherwise, the process does not create genuine openness.
About the Gerber Group
The Gerber Group, headquartered in Riegel am Kaiserstuhl, is a mid-sized stainless steel and aluminium trader with offices in Germany, Italy, Asia and the United States. For more than 20 years, under the leadership of founder and CEO Thorsten Gerber, the company has exclusively served small and medium-sized enterprises in trade and production.
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