European foundry industry joins forces in Ver­ona: Chiara Danieli re-elec­ted to lead EFF

Hos­ted by Asso­fond, the Coun­cil Meet­ing brought together national asso­ci­ations to take stock of the chal­lenges facing European man­u­fac­tur­ing. EFF’s Board was re-elec­ted, strength­en­ing the Federation’s role at the fore­front of major tech­nical and reg­u­lat­ory issues in Brussels

The annual meet­ing of the European Foundry Fed­er­a­tion (EFF) was held on 11 and 12 Septem­ber 2026 at Villa Quar­anta near Ver­ona, Italy. Hos­ted this year by Asso­fond, the meet­ing provided an import­ant oppor­tun­ity to dis­cuss the future of European foundry industry rep­res­ent­a­tion and to strengthen cooper­a­tion among national associations.

Lead­er­ship renewed: recog­ni­tion of EFF’s organ­isa­tional transformation
A key moment in the Federation’s activ­it­ies was the unan­im­ous re-elec­tion of Chiara Danieli as EFF Pres­id­ent for a second three-year term. The EFF Board was also con­firmed, com­pris­ing Fabio Zanardi, Ignacio De la Peña, Clem­ens Kuep­per, Wit­old Dobosz and Mehmet Rıfat Özalp.
There will be a change in the Vice-Pres­id­ency, in line with the annual rota­tion among EFF mem­ber asso­ci­ations: in 2027, the pos­i­tion will be held by Bel­gium and taken up by Hans Ver­cruysse. The Fed­er­a­tion will con­tinue to rely on the oper­a­tional lead­er­ship of Sec­ret­ary Gen­eral Ain­hoa Ond­ar­za­bal.
The re-elec­tion rep­res­ents a clear man­date for con­tinu­ity and recog­ni­tion of the pro­found organ­isa­tional trans­form­a­tion the Fed­er­a­tion has under­gone over the past 18 months. Against the back­drop of soar­ing energy costs, grow­ing com­pet­i­tion from Asia and an increas­ingly bur­den­some reg­u­lat­ory envir­on­ment, EFF has strengthened its oper­a­tional struc­ture in Bil­bao, estab­lish­ing itself as an act­ive and author­it­at­ive voice able to engage dir­ectly with the European Com­mis­sion and the European Parliament.

Indus­trial policy: “Without pro­duc­tion, there can be no stra­tegic autonomy”
The Ver­ona meet­ing provided an oppor­tun­ity for an in-depth stra­tegic dis­cus­sion on the future of man­u­fac­tur­ing in Europe, cul­min­at­ing in a high-level panel discussion.
In her con­tri­bu­tion, EFF Pres­id­ent Chiara Danieli issued a clear warn­ing: «Europe has finally recog­nised that rein­dus­tri­al­isa­tion is a pre­con­di­tion for safe­guard­ing our free­dom. But without pro­duc­tion, there can be no stra­tegic autonomy: only dis­guised depend­ence».
The mes­sage was echoed by the insti­tu­tional speak­ers. Sandra Parthie, Pres­id­ent of the Employ­ers’ Group of the European Eco­nomic and Social Com­mit­tee (EESC), high­lighted the invest­ment gap facing the trans­ition to a more sus­tain­able eco­nomy – estim­ated at as much as €1 tril­lion per year – and poin­ted to excess­ive admin­is­trat­ive and reg­u­lat­ory bur­dens as a major obstacle.
The con­cerns of industry were then addressed by MEP Paolo Borchia, ITRE Com­mit­tee Coordin­ator, who stressed the need to move bey­ond an ideo­lo­gical approach to EU reg­u­la­tion to pre­vent invest­ment from mov­ing out­side Europe.

Key policy files: tak­ing the fight to the tech­nical tables
For foundries – a sec­tor com­pris­ing almost 4,000 com­pan­ies and employ­ing around 200,000 people dir­ectly across Europe – legis­lat­ive devel­op­ments and upcom­ing reg­u­lat­ory dead­lines remain a major concern.
EFF’s tech­nical work­ing groups, coordin­ated by experts from the national asso­ci­ations, presen­ted an update on the main policy files and on the Federation’s intens­ive advocacy work in Brus­sels. Key pri­or­it­ies include:

• Indus­trial Emis­sions Dir­ect­ive (IED): serving as a prime example of EFF’s pro­act­ive advocacy, the Fed­er­a­tion engaged early in the legis­lat­ive pro­cess. By work­ing closely with key poli­cy­makers, includ­ing rap­por­teur Susana Solís Pérez and ENVI Vice-Pres­id­ent Pietro Fioc­chi, EFF suc­cess­fully advoc­ated for the inclu­sion of cru­cial industry amend­ments in the draft reports. The Fed­er­a­tion’s focus is now firmly on safe­guard­ing these achieve­ments through the com­prom­ise nego­ti­ations, the par­lia­ment­ary plen­ary, and the upcom­ing tri­logue phases.

• CBAM (Car­bon Bor­der Adjust­ment Mech­an­ism): EFF’s advocacy efforts have secured the exten­sion of the mech­an­ism to down­stream products, with 42 addi­tional cus­toms codes being brought within its scope. Impor­ted cast­ings clas­si­fied under these codes will there­fore be sub­ject to CBAM from 2028. The exclu­sion of pig iron, alu­minium ingots and ferro-alloys remains a key issue for the foundry industry. Amend­ments aimed at chan­ging the mech­an­ism have not been adop­ted at this stage, but EFF will con­tinue its work dur­ing the next review phases provided for under the legislation.
• ETS reform: EFF is work­ing to address the 42% reduc­tion in free allow­ances and to pro­mote emis­sions bench­marks that are tech­nic­ally and eco­nom­ic­ally achiev­able for the industry.
• The Indus­trial Accel­er­ator Act and envir­on­mental legis­la­tion: EFF is advoc­at­ing for foundries to be expli­citly recog­nised as part of Europe’s stra­tegic indus­trial sec­tors and for admin­is­trat­ive and reg­u­lat­ory bur­dens on SMEs to be reduced.

The two-day meet­ing in Ver­ona con­cluded with a clear roadmap and renewed unity among the national asso­ci­ations. As the European reg­u­lat­ory land­scape becomes increas­ingly com­plex, and as the industry works to safe­guard the sup­ply chains sup­port­ing mobil­ity, energy and defence, Europe’s foundries will need to con­tinue speak­ing with one strong, united voice.

The next oppor­tun­ity to take stock of this intens­ive work will be the EFF Coun­cil Meet­ing in Brus­sels next year.