Open Letter to DG GROW and the CCA Steering Group: Shaping the Alliance's Next Phase

Ahead of the Critical Chemicals Alliance’s General Assembly in October, and the potential renewal of its mandate, a group of stakeholders involved in the CCA process published an open letter to DG GROW and the CCA Steering Group, reflecting on the Alliance’s first working cycle and suggesting ways to strengthen the next one.

The letter acknowledges the CCA’s achievements so far. Four working groups brought together industry, associations, member states, regions, civil society and other stakeholders, and generated a number of widely supported outcomes. Yet this group raised several concerns about the process and focus of the effort. Building on this foundation, the signatories offer forward-looking suggestions.

Room to lean further into modernisation

The letter suggests paying more systematic attention to renewable, safer, and sustainable carbon pathways and molecules, such as bio-based, recycled-carbon and CO₂-based feedstocks, and supportive technologies like hydrogen, electrochemical routes, novel bio-based solutions, chemical recycling and Power-to-X, alongside the existing focus on securing current production.

The signatories also see an opportunity to address process concerns by bringing downstream brands, sustainable feedstock providers, emerging technology companies, SMEs and NGOs more fully into the core groups alongside established producers, making sustained engagement easier for resource-limited actors. They also propose a clearer, more traceable way of documenting how consensus and disagreement are reached.

Concrete ideas for the next phase

Specific suggestions include: more visibility for the innovation fast-track in WG1’s criticality methodology, and linking criticality to other Commission sustainability priorities including safe-and-sustainable-by-design; stronger concrete support for emerging routes like green methanol, PLA, FDCA/PEF and PHA in WG3; and anchoring WG4’s sustainable-carbon definitions in upcoming legislation such as the Biotech Act II and the Circular Economy Act.

Finally, the letter also calls for clearer coordination across the four working groups and stronger links between CCA outputs and the EU policy files they’re meant to inform. With the Multiannual Financial Framework and EU Taxonomy Revision approaching, the signatories see potential for WGs 3 and 4 to shape investment priorities, provided competitive and sustainable transformation and resilience are pursued together.

Importantly, the signatories are not calling for a pause in implementing the CCA’s outcomes to date. Rather, they see this as a way to strengthen the process going forward.

Read the full letter, ‘Reflections on the CCA Process‘: https://renewable-carbon.eu/publications/product/reflections-on-the-cca-process/