European Foundries urge EU for con­crete indus­trial policies amidst geo­pol­it­ical shifts

12 June 2025: 

European Foundries urge EU for con­crete indus­trial policies amidst geo­pol­it­ical shifts

EFF Pres­id­ent Chiara Danieli calls for recog­ni­tion, sup­port, and pro­tec­tion to safe­guard Europe’s stra­tegic foundry sec­tor from deindustrialization

Soave, Italy – June 13, 2025 – The European Foundry Fed­er­a­tion (EFF) today under­scored the crit­ical need for a decis­ive shift in European indus­trial policy, as its Pres­id­ent, Chiara Danieli, addressed the annual Gen­eral Assembly of Asso­fond, the Italian Foundry Asso­ci­ation. Speak­ing to industry lead­ers, experts, and insti­tu­tional rep­res­ent­at­ives, Danieli high­lighted the dire situ­ation facing European foundries and called for urgent, con­crete actions from Brus­sels to ensure the sec­tor’s future com­pet­it­ive­ness and the con­tin­ent’s indus­trial sov­er­eignty.
Foundries, often an “invis­ible but abso­lutely vital” sec­tor, are indis­pens­able for pro­du­cing essen­tial com­pon­ents across a vast array of stra­tegic indus­tries, includ­ing auto­mot­ive, mech­an­ics, aerospace, machine tools, con­struc­tion, and power gen­er­a­tion.
How­ever, this stra­tegic sec­tor is cur­rently caught in a “mor­tal vice” of geo­pol­it­ical instabil­ity, rising pro­tec­tion­ism, and escal­at­ing costs. The global eco­nomic model, once based on mul­ti­lat­eral trade, is in crisis. Chiara Danieli poin­ted to Chin­a’s “over­pro­duc­tion,” often fueled by hid­den sub­sidies, envir­on­mental viol­a­tions, and absent social stand­ards, as a clear strategy for eco­nomic hege­mony. In response, the United States is “clos­ing its mar­ket” and rais­ing bar­ri­ers under an “Amer­ica First” policy. Mean­while, Europe remains “exposed, fra­gile, divided, and often unable to react uni­formly”.
Fur­ther­more, ambi­tious Green Deal reg­u­la­tions, while well-inten­tioned, are often “unim­ple­ment­able in the cur­rent con­text”. Reg­u­la­tions such as REACH, new BREF stand­ards, green­house gas restric­tions, and CSRD have rap­idly increased com­pli­ance costs for European foundries, inad­vert­ently bene­fit­ing non-European com­pet­it­ors who oper­ate under less strin­gent rules. The Car­bon Bor­der Adjust­ment Mech­an­ism (CBAM), though con­cep­tu­ally sound, has proven too com­plex and often inef­fect­ive for SMEs, cre­at­ing bur­eau­cratic bur­dens without fully curb­ing unfair com­pet­i­tion from non-EU pro­du­cers. This con­flu­ence of factors risks accel­er­at­ing Europe’s dein­dus­tri­al­iz­a­tion. In response to these crit­ical chal­lenges, EFF, through Pres­id­ent Danieli, out­lined sev­eral urgent demands to the European Union:

• recog­nize foundries as a stra­tegic sec­tor: foundries are con­spicu­ously absent from key EU strategies like the Net-Zero Industry Act, which focuses on hydro­gen and bat­ter­ies, des­pite these sec­tors being depend­ent on cast com­pon­ents. EFF demands a spe­cified per­cent­age of European con­tent to access sub­sidies and pub­lic mar­kets, pre­vent­ing reli­ance on “Made in China” components.

imple­ment coher­ent cli­mate policies: envir­on­mental pro­tec­tion must go hand-in-hand with allow­ing European industry to thrive. Policies should pre­vent foundries from clos­ing down and relo­cat­ing to coun­tries where “pol­lut­ing costs less”.
• Ensure access to invest­ment funds: small and medium-sized enter­prises (SMEs) in the sec­tor require access­ible fund­ing for innov­a­tion, digit­al­iz­a­tion, thermal recov­ery, effi­cient plant upgrades, and robot­iz­a­tion.
• Develop a European strategy for train­ing and skills: the dis­ap­pear­ance of tech­nical skills neces­sit­ates a com­pre­hens­ive European plan, includ­ing net­works of schools, an “indus­trial Erasmus” pro­gram, and facil­it­ated exchanges between industry and train­ing insti­tu­tions across Europe.
• Uphold European stand­ard­iz­a­tion to defend qual­ity: it is cru­cial to pre­vent pub­lic con­tracts from accept­ing less demand­ing non-European stand­ards. EFF advoc­ates for a “European mark for qual­ity, trace­ab­il­ity, and sus­tain­ab­il­ity” for cast com­pon­ents, emphas­iz­ing that stand­ards are an effect­ive mar­ket pro­tec­tion meas­ure.
• Estab­lish a com­mon energy policy: this is a fun­da­mental require­ment for the sec­tor’s sur­vival and com­pet­it­ive­ness.
EFF is act­ively engaged in these crit­ical areas, work­ing with mem­ber asso­ci­ations on tar­iff nego­ti­ations, devel­op­ing com­mon tools for meas­ur­ing CO2 foot­prints, and par­ti­cip­at­ing in dia­logues with the European Com­mis­sion on CBAM and the Emis­sion Trad­ing Sys­tem (ETS). Pres­id­ent Danieli emphas­ized that EFF’s mis­sion is to amp­lify the sec­tor’s voice in Brus­sels and high­light the stra­tegic role of foundries in ensur­ing Europe’s sov­er­eignty, defense, and free­dom.
In con­clu­sion, EFF calls on Europe to “trans­form announce­ments into con­crete actions”. Redu­cing energy costs, sim­pli­fy­ing reg­u­la­tions, guar­an­tee­ing access to crit­ical raw mater­i­als, and sup­port­ing busi­ness innov­a­tion are “imper­at­ive needs” to pre­vent dein­dus­tri­al­iz­a­tion. “A truly sov­er­eign Europe is a Europe that pro­duces. That casts. That works. That does not del­eg­ate everything to fin­ance or imports,” Danieli asserted.

Back­ground inform­a­tion on EFF
EFF is the umbrella organ­isa­tion of the national European foundry asso­ci­ations. The organ­isa­tion, foun­ded in 1953 as CAEF (Comité des Asso­ci­ations Européennes de Fonderie), has 22 European mem­ber states and works to pro­mote the eco­nom­ical, tech­nical, legal and social interests of the European foundry industry. At the same time, EFF imple­ments activ­it­ies which aim at devel­op­ing national foundry indus­tries and co-ordin­at­ing their shared inter­na­tional interests. The Gen­eral Sec­ret­ariat is situ­ated in Bil­bao. EFF rep­res­ents 4 400 European foundries. Nearly 260 000 employ­ees are gen­er­at­ing a turnover of 39 bil­lion Euro. European foundries are recruit­ing 20 000 work­ers and engin­eers per year. The main cus­tomer indus­tries are e.g. the auto­mot­ive, the gen­eral engin­eer­ing and the build­ing indus­tries as well as the elec­trical engin­eer­ing industry. No indus­trial sec­tor exists without using cas­ted com­pon­ents.
Fur­ther inform­a­tion at www.eff-eu.org  and LinkedIn EFF.

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