Is the new EU-India Strategic Agenda a Victory for Decarbonizing Steel?
In September 2025, the European Union (EU) unveiled its New Strategic EU-India Agenda, outlining a vision to enhance cooperation between India and the EU on trade, technology, security and defence, and climate. The strategic agenda, set against the backdrop of ongoing EU-India free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, lays the groundwork for a Joint EU-India Comprehensive Strategic Agenda to be adopted at the EU-India leaders’ summit in January 2026.
Seeking to advance a clean transition, the agenda explicitly mentions the possibility of cooperation “to accelerate the decarbonisation of heavy industry, particularly by developing low-carbon steel and cement in India”, and highlights enhanced areas of cooperation around the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). While this is a step in the right direction, the agenda falls short of including meaningful cooperation provisions on CBAM. It also fails to adequately address supply-side constraints to developing low-carbon steel in India.
Read the full analysis in our op-ed published in the Economic Times here.
