18 December 2025 – Asian nickel prices showed strength and gains on Thursday. Europe’s steel producers’ lobby is unhappy that it will not be able to export CO2-intensive steel without restriction. Affordable construction in the EU could fail due to the Commission’s plans.
Nickel Prices Show Strength
Asian nickel prices traded positively with gains on Thursday. The SHFE nickel contract NI2601 rose by more than 1%. Prices for this key battery and stainless steel raw material also increased on the LME, standing around 1.3% higher shortly after the start of trading. Stainless steel futures on the SHFE moved largely sideways and remained stable today.
Nickel prices supported by high lithium demand?
Robust and growing demand for batteries for electric vehicles has also pushed lithium prices up by more than 20% since the end of October. At present, demand for lithium significantly exceeds available supply. This is likely to have an impact on nickel prices as well.
EUROFER Dissatisfied with CBAM Export Relief
To the great displeasure of the European steel producers’ lobby, the Commission yesterday presented the proposal for a “Temporary Decarbonisation Fund,” which is closely linked to the CBAM CO2 tax.
The proposal provides that a limited portion of CBAM revenues may, for a limited period, be paid out to companies that are particularly exposed to international competition and could be affected by so-called carbon leakage. The fund is intended to support these energy-intensive companies in their decarbonisation efforts.
The steel lobby responded in unusually sharp language, criticising the design and, in particular, the size of the fund. According to them, it would compensate only about one quarter of their export-related CO2 emissions.
CO2-Intensive Steel from Europe for Global Markets?
Overall, the reaction from lobbyists shows that the supposedly clean steel from Europe is not all that clean after all. And as we had suspected earlier, European steel producers would rather export their CO2-intensive products to international markets than reduce their emissions. A plan that, in any case, does not appear to work under the Commission’s current proposals.
Thorsten Gerber, CEO of the Gerber Group, commented on this statement today: “Cry me a river, Axel – at least then you’ll leave me alone in Parliament.”
EU Presents Plans for Affordable Housing
This week, alongside numerous new CBAM regulations and the hastily cobbled-together proposal for the “end of the ban on the combustion engine,” the EU also presented its plans for affordable housing in the Union.
Costs of Affordable Housing Too High
The Commission has rightly recognised that, due to exorbitantly rising costs, more and more people in the EU can no longer afford to buy a house or an apartment, and that construction in general has become too expensive.
Construction Material Costs Up by More Than 50% Since 2015
The costs of construction materials such as windows, cement, or bricks have increased by more than 50% across the EU since 2015 – an issue that is repeatedly distorted by the statistical base year of 2021 currently used in the EU.
Commission Continues to Drive Construction Costs Higher
However, while the Commission has clearly identified high raw material costs as one of the biggest problems in housing construction, it fails to take into account in its plans and working papers the rising costs caused by the CBAM CO2 tax and the planned introduction of a 50% tariff on steel combined with very low import quotas. This is yet another example of the Commission’s considerable difficulty in thinking in broader contexts and acting across policy areas.
Affordable construction in Europe is therefore likely to remain expensive for the foreseeable future due to competing political objectives within the Commission.
New provisional CBAM Documents Published
In this context, the responsible Directorate-General, DG TAXUD, published 24 new documents on Tuesday relating to the CBAM CO2 tax, which is set to start on 1 January 2026. The many hundreds of pages of text consist of regulations that have so far been marked only as “provisional.” They may therefore still be subject to further changes before being finally adopted by the EU.
All Further CBAM Regulations Only Provisional
As a result, companies affected by CBAM can still only roughly estimate the costs and administrative burdens arising from it. Given the haste with which the Commission has now published the missing drafts, this has also likely led to a very high error rate in the texts.
CBAM Simplification: A Pure Distraction
Ultimately, one thing has now become definitively clear: the alleged simplification of CBAM, which the Commission pushed through Parliament and Council earlier this year, has turned out to be nothing more than a distraction and a red herring. CBAM has certainly not become any simpler.
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