Thank you first of all Dr. Kadri and Dr. Kamid, Prime Minister Dever, Prime Minister Scoff, happy to see you here. Chancellor Stocka, good to have you here. Minister President Deependal, ladies and gentlemen, it is good to be back with you for indeed the third time here at the European Industry Summit.
Last year at the beginning of the new mandate, I came to share our agenda. It is shaped indeed by the Draghi report. It is headlined by the competitiveness compass which is the translation of the Draghi report into milestones. One core element is the clean industrial deal. Our joint plan for decarbonization and competitiveness. And the years since we have rolled up our sleeves and the results are starting to show. So let me begin with the good news.
We more than doubled investments in industrial transitions from 52 billion euros in 2024 to 115 billion in 2025. We already made proposals to cut administrative costs for companies by 15 billion euros every year. We launched an 1.8 billion euro battery booster to scale up European battery manufacturing. We concluded new trade deals and approved 60 new projects for critical raw materials to ensure secure supply for European industry.
These are just a few examples and of course more has to be on its way and more is on its way. You demand real change faster and Europe is changing but has to speed up further. So we must go faster because I know that and you described it just the global pressure on you is growing even more.
We have all seen the news coming from here in Antwerp and elsewhere in Europe. And I must say whenever I hear about an investment leaving Europe and about a factory at risk of closing, my first thought goes to the workers and the families who might lose a vital source of income. But I also think about what it means for Europe as a whole.
Your industry is the industry of industries. The energy, the steel, the chemicals you produce underpin entire value chains. The technologies you develop are vital to Europe's independence. So together, we must secure your future in our continent. And therefore, again, thank you for the invitation.
Europe has a lot to offer. We remain front runners in many areas of the clean transition. We have built world-class value chains in clean energy, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing and so much more. But competition is intensifying and it is sometimes unfair competition. Indeed, we see massive subsidies, state-backed overcapacities, and market distortions. And this makes it increasingly difficult for European industry to compete on a level playing field.
China now exports almost twice as much clean tech as we do. And this is not just a trade statistic. It is a signal of where industrial capacity is concentrating and how quickly global market positions can shift. So the urgency could not be greater. We're fighting for our place in the new global economy and this means together we must make a strong business case for you to choose Europe. Because let me be clear, your future belongs in Europe.
So how can we strengthen the business case for Europe? You need speed, you need scale, power, and new markets to compete in an unrelenting world. Let me start with speed. Speed to expand production and grow. Scale to mobilize more investment and attract capital and power that is abundant and affordable energy. And we need new markets to strengthen and derisk our supply chains. And these are the priorities I would like to focus on today.
Let me start with speed and new markets. In 2025, we concluded trade agreements with Mexico, Indonesia, actually 280 million people, and Switzerland. And it has been an even faster start to this year.
Last month, I signed our trade agreement with Mercosur, a market of 750 million people and a breakthrough after 25 years of negotiations and 20% of GDP are covered by this free trade agreement. And two weeks ago, I was in India to sign the largest free trade agreement ever. The mother of all deals, a market of two billion people, 25% of global GDP. It grants Europe unique access to the fastest growing large economy, a clear first move advantage for our businesses.
And these deals will open new export markets for you and secure your supply of critical minerals. And these are benefits you will feel in your supply chains and on your balance sheets. But as you rightly so said, this is important but not sufficient. We have also to speed up at home in a global race. Delay means lost investment.
Today, it can take longer to permit a new factory than to build it. Energy projects can wait years for approval even when financing is ready. This must change and we have started to change it. For instance, with our wind package, it is cutting permitting times by two-thirds. We are making grid connections faster, addressing a critical bottleneck for many of you with tacit approval of permitting now.
And we're making business easier and faster across the board because as you know, we have set the targets to cut red tape in this mandate by 37 billion euro. That is the equivalent of 25% on the European level. 10 omnibuses are on their way. They are worth 15 billion euro of cuts of red tape every year. So far so good. But of course I'm not satisfied and you are not satisfied with their speed. Because of the 10 omnibuses we proposed last year, only three have reached their destination.
For the other seven omnibuses, we count now on the European Parliament and member states to share the same sense of urgency and the work on European level will go on. But let me raise another topic that is looking at the national level. There is too much gold plating. Gold plating is the extra layers of national legislation that just make your life harder and create new barriers in our single market.
Let me give you an example. A truck in Belgium can weigh up to 44 tons. But if this truck drives to France and wants to cross the border with France, a border that does not exist anymore, it can only carry up to 40 tons. So 44 tons, 40 tons. In June 2023, we proposed legislation to harmonize this. Almost two years later, this is still under discussion by the co-legislators.
Another example, shipping waste from one member state to another should be efficient, easy, and quick. But different national practices, the gold plating, make it extremely complex. Some member state, for example, only accept correspondence by fax. It can take several months for traders to get green light from the authorities depending on the different rules of the different member states.
So if we are serious about simplification, the European level has to do its share. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to do still, but we must also crack down on gold plating and fragmentation. In other words, it's time for deep regulatory house cleaning at all levels. And this is also true when it comes to the European single market, our greatest economic asset. Here we are leaving too much potential on the table. Barriers inside Europe hurt us more than tariffs from the outside. We must therefore complete the single market in Europe if we want Europe to stay competitive in a world of giants.
And that's why we will propose next month the 28th regime. The aim is to create a new truly European company structure. We call it EU Inc. It is a company structure that will have a single and simple set of rules that will apply seamlessly all over our union for all 27 member states. Therefore, the 28th regime so that business can operate across member states much more easily.
Our entrepreneurs will be able to register a company in any member state within 48 hours fully online. EU Inc. will ease access to finance in the startup and scale up phases. It will enable smooth cross-border operations and it will allow rapid wind down if a company fails. We hope not. So this is the speed we need and this is Europe made easy.
But as we simplify rules and speed up permitting, we must also accelerate the uptake of your clean products in Europe. Only a surge in demand will make a clear case for investment. And this is why creating lead markets is so important. And public procurement is a powerful lever. It amounts to 14% of our GDP. This is massive financial firepower controlled by European governments. But too often we see that our public buyers have to take the subsidized foreign products instead of the high-quality European alternatives. And that is homegrown value that we are leaving on the table.
This will be a central focus of the industrial accelerator act that we are putting forward later this month. We will introduce specific EU content requirements for strategic sectors. This also includes low carbon requirements in public procurement and of course this will be based on rigorous economic analysis but it will create a stable demand for industries and it will kick off a virtuous cycle of growth. So the aim is to let us direct more European money to our European industries.
Ladies and gentlemen, this leads me to my second point about scaling up investment. You urgently need better access to low-cost capital and the structural solution to this is to build a deep and liquid capital market. This is the essence of our proposal for our savings and investment union. And the completion of the savings and investment union can unleash up to 470 billion euros of investment.
And to let you know that I am determined to make it happen this time after we've debated a capital market union since at least 10 years. We want to do this by 27. But if this is not possible at the end of this year, I will propose to go with those who want to speed up an enhanced cooperation. For that, you need at least nine member states. As I said, I want it by 27. But if it is necessary to speed up the whole process, we will go by enhanced cooperation.
But as global competition intensifies, investments are also vital to catalyze private money. So let me also focus on this. Last year I was here in Antwerp with a promise. I said we would change our rules for state aid to your sectors to make it faster and more predictable. And this is exactly what we've done. And in response to those new state aid rules, member states have already mobilized more than 21 billion euro in state aid to clean industrial projects.
The next step is now to channel more resources from our emissions trading system into your industries. I know there's a lot of discussion. The emission trading system, ETS, brings clear benefits. Since it was introduced in 2005, the emissions dropped by 39%. While the economy in sectors covered by ETS has grown by 71%. So this shows that decarbonization and competitiveness can go hand in hand and revenues of ETS have been generated by over 260 billion euros since 2005.
On the European level, 100% of these revenues were reinvested in industrial innovation. 100%. For example, the 100 billion euro industrial decarbonization bank is a good example for that. Next week, we're concluding the first pilot auction worth 1 billion euros. It will finance the decarbonization of how you fire furnaces, melt metals or mix chemicals. And more support to your industries will be available once the bank is operational.
But member states invest less than 5% of the ETS revenues in industrial decarbonization. So I believe it is high time and I will raise the topic tomorrow at our retreat that member states step up and match our level of support that is channeling more ETS revenues back to industry. This will therefore be a core focus also of the upcoming reform of our emission trading system this summer because these resources come from the industry and we've told you that we will always and have to reinvest it in the industry itself where the money does come from.
My third and final point is reliable affordable energy. This is central to making the business case for Europe, especially for the energy intensive sectors. Prices are still too high and too volatile. And we know the reason for this. Gas prices drive the energy prices up. Renewables and nuclear drive prices down.
The gas price last year in Europe was on average 100 euros per megawatt hour. The price for renewables was on average 34 per megawatt hour. And the price for nuclear was between 50 and 60 euro per megawatt hour. The data is telling. Of course, this is an average. So in different regions it's different. So the good news is we are well positioned to lower costs.
In 2025, for the first time ever, we produced more electricity from solar and wind than from all fossil fuels together. Our battery storage capacity has more than doubled in the past two years. And in the past two years, nuclear, our largest single energy source, actually increased. But more is needed to stabilize and lower the prices.
So the next few years are crucial because the International Energy Agency tells us that gas prices that were going down are now expected to stay down in the next three to four years. So we should use this time to invest in a low-carbon energy system that will protect us when fossil fuel prices go up again. It's a matter of time then they will go up again.
For that we need the infrastructure for a true energy union because price spikes in one country could often be avoided if cheaper energy could flow across the border. And we have a blueprint to address this. This is the European grids package that is on the table, proposed by the commission. As part of it, we're fast-tracking the construction of energy highways all across Europe. Let me give you one example. We started last month with an agreement on the Bornholm Energy Island. It will connect offshore wind from the Baltic Sea to the Danish and the German national grids. So it will transform the Baltic wind from a national resource into shared European power.
So we will tackle all these bottlenecks one by one. And the goal is simple. Clean energy must flow freely all across our union so that cheap energy can flow where it is needed when it is needed. In addition, we must drastically modernize our energy taxation. While energy costs are going down, national taxes on energy are going up. And the taxes that industry pays on electricity are 15 times higher than taxes on gas. This is just wrong. So we are working with the national governments to reduce the tax burden and bring prices down.
Finally, we must make greater use of power purchase agreements and contracts for difference. We need them in all member states and not only for large companies because locking in energy prices protects you from volatility and lets you plan for the long term.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude. We need everyone in our union to help move them forward. Our proposals are on the table. We need national governments, the European Parliament, the European Commission, all to play their part. We need you, the business and trade union leaders to keep advocating for bold action. What you're doing today. The summit is about listening to your priorities and your proposals. And indeed, tomorrow at the informal meeting of the European Council, I will discuss with leaders how to match the pace you need. It is time to further accelerate so that you can invest in your future right here in Europe. Thank you very much and long live Europe.
