11 June 2025 – According to media reports, the increase in steel and aluminium tariffs to 50% is already having an impact on the availability of stainless steel in the United States. EU CBAM Expert Group: The NGOs involved are largely funded by the European Union.
US tariffs affect stainless steel availability
According to media reports, the increase in steel and aluminium tariffs to 50% is already having an impact on the availability of stainless steel in the United States. US stainless steel manufacturers appear to be focusing primarily on the production of stainless steel grades such as 304 and 304L. Given the already very limited American production capacities for stainless steel, this is likely to lead to a shortage of other grades in the 300 and 400 series in the near future.
Parts of the EU CBAM Expert Group are EU-funded NGOs – Stainless Espresso
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are in most cases dependent on external funding. This is a circumstance that has repeatedly brought NGOs, but also their donors, under criticism. Most recently, the German newspaper Die Welt uncovered and criticised questionable contracts between NGOs and the European Commission.
Die Welt referred in particular to the NGO ClientEarth, which received €300,000 from the EU Life programme and was expected to fulfil certain objectives for the Commission in return. However, it also mentioned NGOs that had received significantly more funding.
- Part 1: EU Green Deal manipulated: How deep is the swamp really?
- Part 2: Think tank of the EU steel lobby: It’s not just green NGOs that exert influence
- Part 3: Parts of the EU CBAM Expert Group are EU-funded NGOs
Individual NGO receives almost 2 million euros from the EU
During our research, we noticed other NGOs that received generous EU financial aid. These included the European Environmental Bureau (EBB) and Carbon Market Watch (CMW). In 2023, the EBB alone received more than 1.96 million euros from the EU, including 700,000 euros from the controversial EU Life programme, meaning that more than 25% of its funding came from EU funds. The EBB has received another €700,000 for 2024. CMW received €205,000 from the Life programme for both 2023 and 2024, but also received additional direct payments from the European Commission of more than €480,000.
Another case of significant financial support from the EU is the NGO Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS), which has received between 1.2 and 1.4 million euros from EU funds over the last two years.
CBAM expert group influenced by paid NGOs?
This fuels the suspicion that NGOs may have exerted influence on the European Green Deal and the Carbon Border Tax CBAM, paid for by the Commission, and may still be doing so. This is fuelled by the fact that all three NGOs (EBB, CMW and ECOS) are members of the important second CBAM Expert Group – and Carbon Market Watch and the Coalition on Standards were already members of the first CBAM group.
Commission repeatedly rejected SMEs and their associations
While EU-funded NGOs were included in this important expert group on the design of CBAM, small and medium-sized enterprises and their associations were repeatedly rejected by the Commission – on grounds that contradicted the Commission’s statutes and regulations, among other things. We have the correspondence on this matter.
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