The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union opened political talks on extending the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism to downstream steel and aluminium goods on Tuesday 20 October 2026. Agence Europe reported the next day that the two institutions presented their negotiating mandates and agreed to continue technical work on a de minimis exemption threshold for aluminium products, the treatment of metal waste, the possible inclusion of online platforms, and default values defined at global level. The next negotiating meeting is set for 30 November.
None of that text is adopted law. The mechanism in force remains Regulation (EU) 2023/956. Ferrous waste and scrap under CN 7204 and aluminium waste and scrap under CN 7602 still do not require CBAM certificates. See CBAM and scrap metal and the 13 October briefing written before the sitting.
What the first trilogue left open
Agence Europe recorded the product-list gap as the Commission proposing about 180 additional products, Parliament 457 (including certain chemicals and polymers), and the Council 400. A Mayer Brown comparison of 7 October 2026 had put the Council mandate closer to 200 additional types. The Commission figure of about 180 additional products and Parliament’s 457 are the same in both accounts. The list of finished goods is a fabricator and importer question. A longer annex of fasteners, wire, tubes or metal furniture would change the carbon cost of those articles at the border; it would not put a CBAM certificate on a cargo of HMS or used beverage cans.
The scrap question is the item Agence Europe listed as the treatment of metal waste. That is the precursor fight already set out in the three mandates. The Commission and the Council would count pre-consumer steel and aluminium scrap as a precursor when calculating embedded emissions in a CBAM good, and would leave post-consumer scrap out. Parliament would count all aluminium waste and scrap under CN 7602, including post-consumer scrap, and would apply a single default value to unwrought aluminium whatever the scrap share. On steel, Parliament would require emissions from pre-consumer scrap to be reported but would not count them toward embedded emissions. The Council’s June text says a claim that material is post-consumer scrap should be backed by evidence of origin; without that evidence the material is treated as pre-consumer.
The aluminium de minimis threshold sits on the same technical agenda. Mayer Brown recorded Parliament’s mandate as lowering the single mass-based threshold for aluminium products from 50 tonnes to 5 tonnes of net mass. That change would bring more importers of fabricated aluminium into the declaration. It would not change how a yard names a bale of cans.
On 21 October 2026 EUROMETAL published a joint statement, also carried by SteelOrbis, in which Eurofer, EUROMETAL, European Aluminium, industriAll European Trade Union and a group of downstream associations asked the co-legislators to agree the broadest possible extension of CBAM to downstream products during the trilogue. The statement argues that as free allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System are phased out, products left outside CBAM face a growing risk of import substitution or of production moving to countries without equivalent carbon costs. The signatories named energy, automotive and other mobility, machinery, construction, packaging, clean technologies, defence, household appliances, cookware, cutlery, catering equipment, hand tools and other metal products. The demand is for a longer goods list. The precursor split on metal waste is a separate line in the same file.
Who it affects among yards, traders, mills and processors
European electric-arc mills and aluminium remelters remain the industrial readers of this file. A longer downstream list, if it survives, would raise the carbon cost of imported fabricated steel and aluminium articles and would leave more of those goods with a reason to be finished from metal melted in the Union. That melt is often scrap-based. Eurofer has made that case since Parliament’s 15 September vote. The 20 October sitting did not close the list.
Aluminium remelters and the yards that feed them are more exposed on the metal-waste line than ferrous yards. If Parliament’s aluminium wording survives, customers of unwrought aluminium will need to know the scrap share and whether it is post-consumer. Lots already named as Taldon, Tata, Tense or Twitch would need a paper trail that they are obsolete cans, new extrusions, mixed castings or fragmentiser aluminium. See aluminium scrap.
Steel yards selling HMS or shredded into an EU melt may still be asked whether an arising is obsolete scrap or factory offcuts, even if steel scrap stays out of the emissions calculation. The Commission and the Council would still count pre-consumer steel scrap as a precursor. Do not price a parcel on a treatment that exists only in a mandate.
Traders booking seaborne ferrous or aluminium for Turkey, India or other third-country melts should keep this file separate from the waste-shipment list. Covered metal entering the Union is what CBAM prices. Whether a waste-classified lot may leave for a non-OECD port after 21 May 2027 is decided by the authorised-country list. See why the EU wants to limit scrap metal exports.
How to name the lot
Name the grade the furnace already charges, the tonnes, and the city or load port. If an EU mill or a fabricator that exports CBAM goods asks whether the arising is post-consumer obsolete scrap or pre-consumer offcuts, answer if you know and keep that distinction on the ticket. State whether the material is waste or claimed as end-of-waste. Do not write a CBAM saving, a precursor code or “post-consumer” as a marketing line on a mixed bag.
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