The European Parliament's Environment, Climate and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) voted on July 6, 2026 on rapporteur Mohammed Chahim's report on proposal 2025/0419(COD), and the Parliament's Legislative Observatory now lists September 14, 2026 as the indicative plenary sitting date for the first reading. The proposal, published by the European Commission on December 17, 2025 as COM(2025) 989, amends Regulation (EU) 2023/956 to extend the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to 180 steel- and aluminium-intensive downstream products from 2028, add anti-circumvention measures, and tighten the emissions rules for imported electricity.
The committee vote moves the file from "awaiting committee decision" toward a plenary position. Shadow rapporteurs span the EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA, ECR, PfE, The Left and ESN, and INTA and ITRE opinions were adopted on June 23 and 24, 2026. The September 14 sitting will fix the Parliament's first-reading stance before trilogue with the Council.
What changes for CBAM scope?
CBAM today covers the carbon-intensive goods in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2023/956: cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen. The amendment adds 180 downstream products further down the steel and aluminium value chains, where embedded emissions and carbon-leakage risk are highest. The Commission's proposal COM(2025) 989 frames the extension as climate effectiveness rather than revenue: the downstream scope is projected to raise EUR 0.58 billion per year by 2030 and EUR 0.69 billion by 2035, against an estimated EUR 0.2 billion average annual impact on the EU budget over 2028 to 2034.
Who has to comply, and from when?
The 2028 application date means EU importers of the newly listed downstream goods will need to declare embedded emissions and surrender CBAM certificates for those consignments, mirroring the obligations already in force for steel, aluminium and the other Annex I goods since the definitive period began. Manufacturers of machinery, packaging, construction components and automotive parts that use significant steel or aluminium inputs, and the non-EU exporters supplying them, notably in China, Turkey and India, fall in scope for the first time. The strengthened reporting, monitoring and verification duties, and the tighter information exchange between customs authorities, national competent authorities and the Commission, apply from the same date.
How does the proposal tackle circumvention?
The amendment gives the Commission a flexible, targeted route via implementing and delegated acts to identify imports at risk of circumvention or avoidance of CBAM obligations, and to impose additional conditions for using actual emissions values where that risk is flagged. This targets practices such as redirecting low-emission-intensive goods to the EU market while a third country does not decarbonise the rest of its production. A separate change simplifies how actual emission values are declared for imported electricity, intended to make real data usable for importers and to reward decarbonisation in exporting countries' power sectors.
| Dimension | CBAM today (Regulation 2023/956) | Under proposal 2025/0419(COD) |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Annex I goods: cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, hydrogen | Annex I plus 180 downstream steel- and aluminium-intensive products |
| Application | Definitive period from 2026 | Downstream extension applies from 2028 |
| Anti-circumvention | Limited | Targeted via implementing and delegated acts; conditions on actual emissions values |
| Electricity imports | Default values dominate | Simplified actual-emissions declaration to incentivise decarbonisation |
| Projected revenue | Existing CBAM revenue | EUR 0.58 billion per year by 2030, EUR 0.69 billion by 2035 |
What should compliance teams do before the September 14 plenary?
The file is still a proposal: the September 14 sitting sets the Parliament's first-reading position, after which the Council position and trilogue will shape the final text. Compliance, trade and customs leads at in-scope importers and downstream manufacturers should map their bill of materials against the 180-product list once the Annex I amendment is fixed, confirm which combined nomenclature codes they import will carry embedded-emissions reporting, and align data collection with the existing CBAM declarant workflow. Exporters selling steel- and aluminium-intensive goods into the EU should track the procedure file 2025/0419(COD) and prepare actual-emissions data, since the anti-circumvention conditions will apply to actual values specifically.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
Next steps: verify whether your imported combined nomenclature codes fall under the 180-product extension, brief trade and customs teams ahead of the September 14 plenary, and set internal deadlines to align embedded-emissions data collection with the 2028 application date. Obsidian surfaces this kind of legislative movement the moment a procedure file updates, so compliance teams can prepare before the final text lands.
