Pulling Together: A European Partnership Model For Decarbonization – Analysis
LONG READ
Key Takeaways:
The EU cannot decarbonise alone amid Chinese dominance of clean-tech supply chains and US disruption, so it must build a “green relay” of priority partners such as Brazil, Canada, the DRC, South Africa, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, Japan and South Korea to supply critical materials, engineered products and components.
Drawing lessons from China, Japan and the US, the paper outlines eight concrete steps: tailored offer kits, faster deals with like-minded and neighbouring countries, lead markets with selective protection, offtake and price guarantees, carbon credits and green guarantees, joint research, regulatory twinning, and active participation in coalitions of the willing.
Success hinges on overcoming three hurdles—slow processes, insufficient capital and fragmented EU–member-state coordination—so that market access, finance and know-how become competitive offers that expand partners’ room for manoeuvre.
A relay to the rescue
In the winter of 1925, 20 dog sled teams ran a 674-mile relay through an Arctic blizzard to bring medicine to the town of Nome, in Alaska. Nome faced a deadly diphtheria outbreak with no way to get antitoxin serum through the sub-zero winter freeze. Officials judged that sled dogs offered the only chance of delivering the serum in time, but no single team could make the journey alone, so the authorities split the route into stages and passed the serum from team to team. That relay saved the residents of Nome.
The EU’s green transition also runs through a geopolitical blizzard, a period of rupture. America has broken with Europe and moved from being the guarantor of Western security and prosperity to a disruptor that rips up the rulebook, and weaponises all of its assets. China exploits the uncertainty, hyper-connectedness and asymmetric dependencies of this new moment to press ahead with its economic strategy and entrench its dominance of clean-technology supply chains and manufacturing. This is the storm that Europe needs to navigate to make it through to a planet that stays safe to live on, and a Europe that is stronger for helping to keep it so. But the bloc cannot make the journey alone. What it can do is build a “green relay” of countries that will move everyone towards a sustainable future: partners that can carry a stretch of the route, supplying the clean materials, components and tech that Europe lacks while decarbonising themselves.
The stakes are high. The EU will lose markets, jobs and investment if it simply accepts rivals’ monopoly of clean tech supply chains as the world decarbonises. Its security is at stake too, as the heat, floods and storms of a warming climate strain its infrastructure and energy systems. The bloc needs a stronger partner network to widen its options, and choosing where it sources materials and technology is how it keeps its agency over its green transition.
Europe can build that relay by turning its market access, finance, technology and skills into offers that partners find hard to resist. That would help underpin its own green transition and show other major powers that global decarbonisation is achievable despite the breakdown of global consensus on its necessity. This paper shows how the EU can pick its team in such a qualitative leap. We outline what Europe needs and from whom, lessons from other powers that are building their own teams, and eight ways to improve the EU’s offer. In the simple terms of Trumpian times, this paper lays out what the EU can put on the table to sign up its relay partners, and how to make sure they say yes.
How to choose relay partners
Over 90% of rare earth magnets, used in wind energy, are made in China, as are around 95% of heat pump compressors. This means that Europeans cannot be self-sufficient in delivering the green transition. The problem is not confined to these two sectors. In other areas critical for decarbonisation—for example, grid infrastructure, electric vehicle manufacturing, or battery development more broadly—the EU’s dependence is also high. That means the bloc will need partners to advance these areas and to decarbonise heavy industry such as cement, iron and steel. Think of a sled team: each dog can pull hard alone, but the sled moves only when the harnesses pull together.
Choosing the right partners is a key part of building a green relay team. The EU has a great many possible ones to consider. Just for its top five critical mineral imports in 2024—cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium and nickel—the EU traded with 16 different supplier countries, according to authors’ analysis of data from the World Integrated Trade Solution and UN Comtrade. Add components and engineered materials, and the list of possible suppliers becomes unwieldy. The EU can have many partners, but it needs to assemble a smaller group of priority countries to carry its green transition the full distance. The best relay partners will be global players that will repay investment in the relationship with predictable supplies for the EU’s green transition and have their own climate ambitions.
Research from Catalyse Europe and Ember, as well as earlier ECFR work, points to three areas where the EU needs reliable suppliers if it is to keep its choices open for its own transition:critical raw materials for clean tech;
engineered materials such as green iron and steel; and,
components for key clean tech sectors.
China is at or near the top of the list for all three elements. However, the sheer scale of its supply chain dominance in the clean tech sector, its control of the production of the materials that feed it, and the centrality of this dominance to its long-term economic model, mean that dependence on China hands it more power to coerce the EU. Rather, the EU’s goal should be to diversify away from single-country dependency by investing in the partnerships that can supply it the materials it needs. Several major suppliers of the EU have committed to cutting their own emissions, so they could be reliable relay partners. Brazil, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Africa supply raw materials, including the iron ore and other minerals the EU needs for engineering materials. Indonesia, Morocco and Turkey offer other raw materials and manufacturing. Japan, South Korea and, to a lesser extent, India supply components.
Identifying sources of supply is only a part of the picture. The bigger challenge for the EU is winning partners over in a competitive world. Incomes and priorities vary across countries, so the EU will need distinct offers for low- and middle-income economies in the “global south” and for richer OECD countries. The EU is of course not starting from zero here. It already has laws and plans to secure its green industrial supplies, including the Net-Zero Industry Act, the European Critical Raw Materials Act, the Resource EU Action Plan and the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act. Laws alone will not secure supplies, so strengthening international partnerships is the third pillar of the EU economic security strategy. The EU has 16 bilateral mineral partnerships and has developed a joint action plan with the US to make critical mineral supply chains more resilient.
Learn from rival teams: Clear goals, serious money and shared tech
The EU is far from the only team on the course, and some rival teams are already well on the way. China’s approach is the biggest in investment and market access, the longest-running and the most systematic. But many other governments now offer resource-rich countries partnerships on critical minerals and clean-tech supply chains, because they too want to avoid relying on China alone. Japan has spent over 15 years making its supply chains more resilient, using state-backed market commitments and financing and strategic research and innovation cooperation. Other OECD countries also use the state more actively. America is investing directly in public-private partnerships. So the EU’s offer to relay partners has to be competitive. Five lessons from these rivals follow, each showing one way the EU can sharpen its offer.
Lesson 1: Set clear, public government goals for international partnerships
Who is doing it
What they are doing
Japan
Japan’s “Sanaenomics” strategy, named after the prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, aims to reduce reliance on China by diversifying supply chains and cooperating on innovation with countries such as India, Vietnam and Brazil. Part of that is finding substitute materials and using minerals more efficiently where China dominates, such as heavy rare earths. Japan has also intensified cooperation with OECD countries such as resource-rich Australia, has an agreement with the United States to cooperate on securing critical minerals, and one with India that includes refining and deep-sea mining.
China
China has long pledged to promote local industries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. For example, in the 2025-2027 Beijing Action Plan from the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), China commits to supporting African “deep processing” and local value chains for critical minerals, to help develop five regional China-Africa industrial “growth circles”, 10 industrial park projects, 30 joint lab programmes and skills training in China, among other measures.
India
The Indian government has stated that it aims to reduce “single-source dependency”. For India that chiefly means China, which is both a major supplier of its critical minerals and its traditional rival. Through its National Critical Mineral Mission, India is cooperating with or negotiating deals with 35 countries on minerals such as rare earths, cobalt, copper and lithium.
Lesson 2: Invest in cooperation structures around resilience and green industrial development
US
The US is building groups of allied countries and signing bilateral deals to secure critical minerals outside China. In February 2026, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, launched the FORGE Initiative, a group of allies that aims to create a preferential trade zone for critical minerals, with minimum prices enforced through tariffs. Members include Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and South Korea. The US is also part of the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative (with Japan, Australia and India). DR Congo is one example of bilateral cooperation, with big private investments from US companies in mining cobalt, copper and other metals.
South Korea
South Korea is deeply involved in the Minerals Security Partnership and is now also chairing the US-initiated FORGE cooperation.
Lesson 3: Back partnerships with serious money
China
Since China launched its Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure programme, in 2013, many in the global south say that China is a partner that actually builds things, often more rapidly and without the requirements that the European Union puts on issues such as human rights. Chinese firms also often arrive with a full package of contractors, equipment and supplies, and put forward investment offers that can be delivered before the next election.
On critical minerals specifically, Chinese companies, often supported by the state, have made massive investments in developing countries to take control of supplies at the mining stage. According to the Australian think-tank Climate Energy Finance, China has invested more than $120bn abroad in mining and mineral-processing projects since 2023, for lithium, copper, nickel and rare earths. The investment also covers supporting infrastructure like ports and railways.
Japan
Japan puts substantial public money behind its partnerships in several ways. One is climate finance. Through the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM), Japan pays for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, counting part of the reduction against its own climate commitment under Article 6 of the Paris agreement. The partner country benefits from the investment and can count most of the reduction against its own targets. A key objective is “facilitating diffusion of leading decarbonizing technologies, products, systems, services and infrastructure”, which is often interpreted as a way to export Japanese technology and products. Japan has bilateral JCM agreements with 32 countries, the first signed in 2013.
Japan also backs its partnerships with serious money, notably through the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), a state agency that can, among other things, finance exploration and refining in other countries. It has invested $600m in about 100 critical minerals projects around the globe since it was established in 2004. The government is currently considering allowing JOGMEC to also directly acquire stakes in overseas critical minerals projects without a Japanese enterprise as a partner. For example, JOGMEC is supporting an investment by the trading company Toyota Tsusho in rare earth mining in Namibia.
Financial support can also come through the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, a state-owned lender. The government wants to allow JBIC to invest in companies that secure critical minerals in developing countries, so that the state shares some of the risk. The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), a government trade agency, also plays a key role in promoting trade and investment in critical minerals and in supporting green industrial transitions.
US
The US is also putting state money behind critical minerals, in part by taking stakes in companies. In July 2025, the Pentagon developed a public-private partnership investing $400m in exchange for shares in MP Materials, the only US producer of neodymium and praseodymium, the rare earths used in permanent magnets. Part of the US policy package is guaranteeing minimum prices for such rare earths.
Gulf states
The Gulf states channel their large sovereign wealth funds, and similar vehicles, into mining, infrastructure and mineral refining, often through joint ventures. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for example, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has struck a broad cooperation agreement on mining and infrastructure, with its International Resource Holding company agreeing with the Congolese mining company Sakima to develop four mines for critical minerals.
For Saudi Arabia, Manara Minerals is a strategic vehicle to invest in critical minerals abroad. The company is a joint venture between the state mining company Ma’aden and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Lesson 4: Share technology to win access to partners’ markets
China
China trades technology for access to Brazil’s market. It has many agreements with Brazil on green industry, including a “synergy agreement” linking cooperation to Brazil’s new industrial strategies. Brazil has demanded, and to some extent won, commitments to develop technology jointly. Chinese car manufacturer BYD has, for example, agreed to partner with local universities to build Brazilian expertise in electric-vehicle technology. The cooperation extends to critical minerals, with a memorandum of understanding on sustainable mining. The Export-Import Bank of China and Brazil’s development bank, BNDES, are creating a joint investment fund with mining and clean energy as some of the priority sectors. Cooperation on sustainable aviation fuels with Brazil is more advanced than with any other partner country.
Research and innovation cooperation is part of the Chinese offer, as well as skills development. For example, Xi Jinping has promised that China will offer Latin Americans 3,500 government scholarships and 10,000 training opportunities in China for three years.
China offers broad cooperation, including in advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies. For example, Xi Jinping recently said China could support the use of AI in developing countries. As a leader in low-carbon technologies, China could also offer developing countries solutions to the rising fossil fuel costs caused by the Iran crisis.
India India has long demanded technology transfer in global climate negotiations. As an advanced industrial country itself, India cooperates with developing countries on capacity building. For example, it has set up with Zambia a Technology Transfer Programme, a Joint Permanent Commission and a joint innovation hub for minerals.
Gulf states The Gulf states are at the forefront of green-hydrogen development. The UAE has invested billions of dollars in clean-energy projects around the world, and the same is true of Saudi Arabia. For example, the Saudi company ACWA Power is developing a major green ammonia project in Egypt.
Lesson 5: Encourage cross-border private sector cooperation
South Korea
South Korea relies on its companies to carry much of its cooperation abroad. In decarbonising heavy industry, South Korean firms such as the steelmaker POSCO are among the world’s technology leaders, and cooperation with partners including Australia on supplies of iron and other minerals is growing.
Taken together, these lessons show that partners are won with clear public goals, substantial funding and shared technology. They can guide the EU, but the bloc will have to draw up its own approach to attracting relay partners, built on the assets it brings to each relationship.
How the EU can attract relay partners
As the world’s largest trading area and home to some of its wealthiest countries, the EU has plenty to put on the table, and often already uses the same approaches as the countries described in the previous section. The challenge is to bring its tools together and refine them into an offer that attracts partners. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said this summer that resilient, diversified supply chains need a coordinated package of policies. This package must tackle investment risk, market structure and gaps in technology and know-how, with incentives for both supply-side and demand-side development. The eight approaches below show what concrete steps the EU can take to create a competitive package.
1. Offer kits with tailored extras for each partner
The EU’s existing agreements are wide in scope but need strengthening in what they offer each partner. Economic development, including poverty reduction, matters to many partners, and the EU and its member states already have broad cooperation agreements with both resource-rich developing countries and wealthy OECD countries. However, these agreements could better reflect individual countries’ interests, which would increase their appeal.
How to improve the EU’s offer
EU green-industry and supply-chain offers should widen existing agreements to cover entire supply and industrial ecosystems and top them up with measures that address each partner’s domestic agenda.
Such measures, for example, should include biobased products and the circular economy for Brazil. Its decision-makers are keen to discuss how the EU can adapt existing EU rules, such as the taxonomy that classifies sustainable investments, and those on deforestation and biofuels. The EU should also cover social aspects, such as funding for a just transition in the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) with South Africa.
China is one of those players whose offer is broad, spanning infrastructure, finance, trade and investment, especially to Africa. But breadth has not always translated into popularity. Complaints about debt traps, few local jobs, opaque contracts, harm to the environment and poor working conditions in Chinese companies have fuelled unease in some partner countries. Many governments would like to reduce dependency on China without ending cooperation altogether. That does not mean they want to be drawn into a contest between the West and China. Rather than asking partners to choose sides, the EU should present its offer as a way of expanding their room for manoeuvre. And while European policymakers should be open about their own interests, they should avoid creating the impression that engagement is driven solely by a desire to secure access to natural resources.
2. Line up like-minded partners first
Trade agreements are one of the EU’s main tools for building partnerships, but so far they have not been shown to secure the critical minerals it needs. Many of the EU’s trade agreements now include sustainability chapters and, more recently, provisions on access to critical minerals. The Mercosur agreement is such an example. By making sustainability commitments and adherence to the Paris climate agreement a core part of the deal, the EU has tied market access to environmental goals. Yet the European Court of Auditors found in 2026 that the commission cannot show that such deals have been effective in raising the EU’s supply of critical raw materials. The EU must therefore either implement its existing deals more effectively or negotiate new ones.
The EU’s newest trade tool shows promise, but so far it lacks the money and speed to matter. The Clean Trade and Investment Partnership (CTIP) is a new type of deal in which partners get easier trade and investment in return for climate commitments. The first, with South Africa, was signed in November 2025.
That is too slow, and one partner is too few. The EU needs to act faster in order to meet its climate goals before the damage to the environment becomes irreversible. The easiest places to widen the net are to make such agreements with like-minded OECD countries and neighbouring countries.
How to improve the EU’s offer
Donald Trump’s presidency has drawn other OECD members closer to the EU’s view that a rules-based order and green transitions matter. The EU can relatively easily deepen cooperation with these like-minded countries, which are at a similar stage of economic development. Japan and South Korea, for example, have the manufacturing and capital to help build clean-tech supply chains, while Canada and Australia have the raw materials to feed them. In her State of the Union address in September 2026, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, even floated “associate membership” for Canada. The EU and Canada then held a summit on October 29th–30th, the outcome of which envisages far-reaching cooperation within a new Canada-EU Alliance for the Future. Follow-up has included an investment agreement, signed by the European Investment Bank and Canada, focused on critical minerals.
The EU should also use association agreements with neighbouring countries to secure supply chains for the green transition close to home. Neighbours are an obvious place to start, because companies there are often closely interlinked in European supply chains. The EU already has agreements with North African and Middle Eastern countries, for example, which largely eliminated tariffs on all industrial goods. Cooperation on energy and climate is playing a growing role in these agreements. With Morocco, the EU has had a green partnership since 2022, supported by the Global Gateway initiative. The partnership could go further by supporting low-carbon fertiliser production with renewable energy. Similarly, the EU could work with other countries as it does with Egypt, where cooperation on electricity grids, green hydrogen and renewable energy can serve climate goals for both sides.
3. Clear the course for clean markets, and guard them judiciously
Access to the EU’s internal market of 450 million people is its biggest draw for partners to supply its green transition, but the bloc’s measures to protect European industry deter them. Restrictions such as its carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which puts a carbon price on imports such as steel and cement, and deforestation rules, which bar imports of soy, beef and similar goods from recently cleared land, could push suppliers away. More friction is on its way, from “Made in Europe” criteria in forthcoming laws, which would require EU-made content in government buying. The Industrial Accelerator Act, proposed in March 2026, would also require European-made content in publicly funded purchases of goods such as steel and solar panels. Revised public-procurement rules would do likewise. Such measures are sometimes necessary to protect European clean-tech firms from unfair competition, especially from China, but good relations with partner countries should be a more significant part of the equation.
How to improve the EU’s offer
By continuing its green transition, the EU can create markets that serve partners’ companies as well as European ones. One way to do this is to set up “lead markets”, where early demand lets new technologies scale up and cut costs. Carbon pricing, for example, makes polluting products dearer and so draws buyers to clean ones. Criteria in public procurement (as currently discussed) and quotas for certain products can do the same. That leaves room for both “Made in Europe” products and close cooperation with trusted partners.
Yet building lead markets that partners can use means the EU must stop protecting every domestic company and accept that “creative destruction” should be part of industrial development. It should limit trade protection to areas where it is truly necessary and where European firms have a good chance of winning market share on a level playing field. It should not use trade barriers to prop up firms with little hope of competing in the long run.
4. Secure the harnesses by guaranteeing returns on investments
To draw investors into new supply chains for the green transition, the EU should guarantee them a market. Its members can promise to take what partners produce. When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine set off an energy crisis, the EU created a joint platform for buying liquefied natural gas. Member states already do this on a smaller scale. Germany and the Netherlands do it for low-carbon hydrogen. Partners outside Europe need the same assurance before they commit to new capacity. The Team Europe initiative on green iron in Brazil, a Global Gateway project that pairs cheap Brazilian hydrogen with Vale’s iron ore to make green steel in the EU, shows scope for an offtake agreement. Southern Africa, centred on South Africa, also has great potential. Namibia shows this potential in practice, as it already has an offtake agreement for green iron with a German company.
The commission is now extending joint purchasing to critical raw materials. The EU Energy and Raw Materials Platform, which matches buyers with suppliers, was launched in July 2025, but the commission wants to go further, with a public body that buys and stockpiles critical raw materials itself. It has advocated a European Critical Raw Materials Centre, like Japan’s state agency that finances overseas mining and stockpiles metals, the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC). Von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech also proposed a European Corporation on Critical Raw Materials. The idea is to add public joint purchasing and stockpiling to the private matchmaking that the Raw Materials Mechanism already does. A public buyer of this kind would give investors in partner countries the demand guarantee they need.
How to improve the EU’s offer
Member states are negotiating the funding for these investments in the Council of the EU, but the talks are tangled up in a wider dispute over the next EU budget. They should settle the funding quickly and get public joint purchasing and stockpiling in place.
The EU must also fund the purchasing and stockpiling. The quickest route is to write them into the Competitiveness Fund, which the Council and the European Parliament are now negotiating. The European Parliament’s proposal for a European Critical Raw Materials Fund, with a €2bn budget, is a step in the right direction. Failing that, the bloc could turn to the Industrial Decarbonisation Bank or a new resilience charge on imports from dominant producers such as China.
Suppliers outside China often struggle to compete on price. National governments and the EU should therefore guarantee minimum prices for trusted suppliers, as advocated by the IEA, and use regulation to promote diversification away from China, including in the processing and refining of minerals. MP Materials in the United States and Nouveau Monde Graphite in Canada show how such support can work. The US government guarantees MP Materials a minimum price of $110 a kg for neodymium and praseodymium, two rare earths used in magnets, for 10 years, to help its mine turn a profit. Coordinated public procurement can also create markets in other areas, such as low-carbon iron and ammonia.
5. Pay for the run with carbon markets and guarantees
The EU and its member states together are the world’s biggest development donor, but the need is far larger than their budgets and risk further cuts, which would weaken the EU’s hand with partners. The EU could instead go further with guarantees that reduce risks for investors and carbon credits that pay partners for cutting emissions.
The EU’s financial offer is already broad, spanning grants, guarantees and loans from both Brussels and member states. The bloc pays directly for infrastructure, such as electricity grids and railways. It also offers guarantees, through the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+), that shield private investors from some of the risk. France and Germany add their own state development banks, AFD and KfW. The EU’s financing is visible in two flagship deals. The first is the JETP with South Africa, where the EU, together with France and Germany, has made €3bn available since 2022, though much remains unspent. The second is the EU-Mercosur agreement, where the EU has pledged €1.8bn to Global Gateway projects in the countries concerned, including for green transitions.
Yet these sums are small amounts in relation to what is needed. The OECD and the IEA estimate that low-carbon steel and cement alone need more than €300bn of investment in emerging and developing economies to reach net zero by 2050. India’s bill is larger still: the think-tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water says net-zero steel and cement will require $627bn (about €560bn) of investment, much of which needs backing from international partners, including through guarantees and subsidised loans. Indonesia and Vietnam would need $122bn and $120bn respectively, according to analysis by the World Bank.
How to improve the EU’s offer
The EU should prioritise adequate funding in the next Global Europe Instrument, now under negotiation as part of the next seven-year EU budget. But it can also stretch its funds by doing more to derisk private investments. Green guarantees, which promise to cover an investor’s losses if a project fails, are one promising way of reducing the risks of investing in high-risk markets. Donor countries and multilateral development banks can, for example, offer guarantees against exchange rate risk. They can also provide first-loss guarantees, which take the first hit if a project fails, to companies that are beginning to use new technologies, such as producing steel using hydrogen. Germany and Nigeria already do this through the Green Guarantees Group, a platform launched in 2024 that brings together governments, guarantee providers and investors to scale up guarantees for emerging economies. The EU as a whole should do more of this. In the next seven-year budget, the EU should also expand the EFSD+ programme while improving coordination with European export credit agencies, state-backed bodies that insure and finance exports and can also help reduce investment risks.
The bloc already has an instrument to use to this effect. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the EU’s natural lender for the risks that private investors shun, and EIB Global, its arm for projects outside the EU, could take first-loss risk on green projects in partner countries. It already funds renewable projects, but mostly safer ones. For example, with Germany’s KfW it provides up to €216m for renewable hydrogen projects in Chile. The recent rise in its gearing ratio—the cap on lending relative to its capital—gives it more room to lend, though not necessarily to take more risk. Member states have good reason to increase the EIB’s capital, which would give it a bigger cushion against losses on riskier projects. In addition, better coordination between the EIB, Global Europe and financing from member states is needed. A pilot project with a few partner countries could bring together the EIB, the commission and the biggest national development banks in closer coordination of activities.
International carbon credits could be another source of finance, with EU buyers paying partners for cutting emissions. The EU has decided to use up to 5% of 1990 EU net emissions of “high-quality” international credits under Article 6 of the Paris climate agreement from 2036 to 2040, in order to reach its 2040 climate target. A pilot will run from 2031 to 2035. This mechanism will create billions in euro transfers to other countries that cut their emissions, including in carbon-intensive industries.
Credits could become a real source of finance for partners, but only if the EU settles who buys them, how, and on what terms. First, it is unclear whether member states share the commission’s view that purchases of such credits should be coordinated at EU level. Second, the EU must choose between project-based methods, like Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism, and broader agreements with countries that have, for example, a high enough carbon price. Either way, international credits could help the EU’s resilience and its supply of low-carbon inputs, though in different ways. The catch is that partners may hold off on their own cuts until credits from the EU start paying them.
6. Build stronger teams through joint research ties and training
Partner countries aim to build their own research and industrial know-how, not only buy European technology. The EU’s main offer so far is access to Horizon Europe, its research and innovation programme, which lets partners’ researchers and firms compete for grants on the same terms as European ones. Partners value it. South Africa was eager to include such participation in the recent CTIP. But other partners could also gain from similar offers. The EU should expand who it offers cooperation on research and other know-how based on partners’ long-term economic and political value, not only for their science today.
How to improve the EU’s offer
In addition to Horizon Europe access, which is mainly a chance to compete for grants, the EU should learn from China and offer more help to build long-term research and innovation ecosystems in partner countries.
Such ecosystems should include establishing joint research institutes in areas important for green transitions and adding value to natural resources. The EU and its member states could support European institutes that establish such joint ventures. Brazil and South Africa are natural places to host the first institutes, since both already have deep research ties with the EU and active Team Europe projects. The EU could also do more to build institutional capacity, improve research infrastructure and subsidise test beds for new products.
Yet talks on the next seven-year budget are already shaping how Horizon Europe and the new Competitiveness Fund will work, and the proposals so far would shrink Horizon Europe and limit cross-border research collaboration. Member states will need to step up and coordinate bilateral support for green innovation ecosystems in partner countries if there is no agreement for sufficient action at the EU level.
European private companies could also do more to build skills in partner countries, as Theophilus Acheampong has suggested for Africa in another ECFR publication. If companies do too little themselves, EU policymakers could impose conditions on financial support and derisking tools and sometimes give grants to companies and research institutes that invest in joint innovation and skills development.
7. Share your knowledge of the trail
The EU’s most underused offer may be its know-how in creating regulation: how to write, enforce and finance green rules. Partners that want to cut emissions need working institutions and sound regulation, and the EU has decades of experience in building both. The bloc has created a comprehensive legislative framework and administrative capacity for environmental protection and climate transitions. It has similar experience in the internal market and innovation policy. Sharing this experience and supporting institutional capacity in partner countries is an important part of what the EU can offer.
How to improve the EU’s offer
The EU’s regulatory know-how can be most useful, for example, where pollution and heat are worst. European countries can share their experience of tackling air pollution and help partners do the same in emerging markets with poor air quality, such as India. The same is true for other green policy areas, such as water efficiency and cooling buildings in India and Indonesia. In environmental monitoring, the EU’s Copernicus Earth-observation programme is a major asset, for example in work with Brazil. More generally, partner countries are looking for support in improving cybersecurity and managing the rapid development of artificial intelligence.
Knowing how to write rules only pays off if they can be enforced, and enforcement needs money and people, so the EU should offer partners help with financing them, setting up enforcement infrastructure and training personnel. For example, the EU Task Force for International Carbon Pricing and Markets Diplomacy, set up in 2024, works with more than 40 partner countries to help them adopt carbon pricing and build carbon markets. However, it does not address how Europeans can help develop the infrastructure, access to finance, intellectual property rights and personnel skills necessary for industrial decarbonisation. The EU could do this through “twinning” with government agencies in member states. Twinning, which pairs institutions in EU member states with counterparts in candidate countries through staff exchanges and joint seminars, has worked well in Europe. But programmes that support this kind of cooperation with countries in other parts of the world are still far too limited. For example, as noted by the Observer Research Foundation, many partner countries lack mature systems for carbon accounting and the monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions needed to comply with CBAM. The EU can and should support the development of such systems through assistance to both authorities and companies in partner countries, for example with India.
The need for support is particularly strong for small and medium enterprises that struggle to meet CBAM and deforestation rules. India, for example, has many small steel companies, as do Brazil and Indonesia. Priority should go to scaling technical assistance for smaller companies and co-developing digital tools with partner-country authorities.
8. Run as a pack with coalitions and frameworks
“Coalitions of the willing” now drive much of global green industrial policy, but the EU as such is largely absent from them even if some member states play important roles. Several such groups have appeared in recent years for critical minerals and low-carbon industry, as cooperation through the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) has grown harder because US–China rivalry is spilling into climate talks. Examples include the Minerals Security Partnership, a 2022 US-led effort to diversify critical-minerals supply chains and, more recently, the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement, a US-backed trade and investment coalition launched in 2026 that succeeds the Minerals Security Partnership. The EU should join the coalitions that are gaining momentum, or lead new ones, rather than watch from the sidelines.
The emergence of these coalitions is partly because countries want more say and to see more action in green industrial transitions. Potential partner countries already play prominent roles in coalitions of the willing, for example Canada, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey in the Climate Club. Many developing countries also call for better technology cooperation. India pressed hard for this at COP30 in Brazil last year. Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa also signed the Belém Declaration on Global Green Industrialisation, a COP30 framework for industrial decarbonisation, alongside EU member states, Australia, South Korea, industry and academia, urging more action and cooperation.
How to improve the EU’s offer
The EU should take a more active part in coalitions and minilateral groups, because they can accelerate the climate transition. Creating demand for low-carbon products in smaller “clubs” is one way to speed up industrial decarbonisation, as advocated in the IEA Breakthrough Agenda 2026 report on iron and steel. The IEA also recommends such actions in its recent report, for example on fertilisers. Improving recycling of critical minerals can be another important area for international cooperation.
The EU can widen coalitions through partners that carry weight in other regions. Brazil, South Africa and India have legitimacy in the global south and are not burdened by a history of being colonial powers. The EU could build on this by pursuing “triangular” cooperation with middle powers and global south states, such as sustainable mining with Brazil and Africn countries.
Coalitions can also be linked to the UN system. The EU could play a key role in negotiating a Global Green Industrialisation Agenda at COP31 in Antalya. Turkey wants the agenda to be prominent there too. Together with key partners such as Brazil, Canada, India, Japan and South Africa, the EU can work for stronger links between UN institutions and coalitions of the willing.
The EU and its member states should also help put into practice what these coalitions agree. For example, they could increase their contributions to the industry decarbonisation programme of the Climate Investment Funds, and press multilateral development banks to prioritise low-carbon industry. Another element could be the establishment of a green technology licensing mechanism within the UNFCCC Green Climate Fund, with appropriate financing. They can also show commitment with more funding for the UN Industrial Development Organization, the UN Environment Programme and the Climate Technology Centre.
Three hurdles on the route: Speed, capital and coordination
To complete the run with its relay partners, the EU faces three cross-cutting challenges.
The first challenge is speed. The turnaround times at all levels, from finance to legislation to permitting, are too slow to compete with China, the Gulf states and others. The EU is capable of working faster. When it came to vaccine procurement in tackling the covid-19 pandemic, or the energy crisis starting in 2021, the EU mobilised its machinery quickly. To attract partners also focused on their own transition, the EU should recategorise this challenge as urgent. Von der Leyen’s 2026 State of the Union speech, which framed climate change along with artificial intelligence as the two “tipping points of our time”, was an important change of tone.
The second challenge is mobilising sufficient capital to put behind these partnerships. The European Central Bank estimates that investment equivalent to 2.7–3.7% of EU GDP will be needed every year from 2026 to 2030 in order to shift from carbon-intensive to carbon-free technologies. This is a very tall order in the current geopolitical environment. Security, a national competence, now tops the priority list of policymakers, given the war in Ukraine and more frequent threats within the EU. Rising living costs, volatile energy prices and food supply worries leave every EU government focused on showing results on jobs and poverty. Germany leads a backlash against the commission’s plan to lift the next seven-year budget to €2trn. This makes an increase in EU spending seem unlikely, but framing the transition as urgent for economic and security reasons can help policymakers earmark sufficient amounts for it. Without a bigger budget, other tools include more EIB lending, using emissions trading revenue for external relations, and co-financing joint procurement with member states.
The final cross-cutting challenge is the need to improve internal EU coordination in engagement with third countries. Partner countries often find the EU confusing. Big member states such as Germany and France often have a more visible presence than the EU, with many national initiatives on resilient supply chains and low-carbon transformations of industry in parallel to EU-level action. For example, as noted in one interview for this paper, India has signed over 30 memoranda of understanding on climate and clean energy with 14 individual EU member states and Britain. In parallel, India has critical-minerals agreements with Germany and France regarding joint exploration, processing technology and research on rare-earth recycling, among others. This diversity can sometimes help the EU, but fragmentation more often lets partners play one part of the EU against another and slows EU action. Brazil is a case in point. European countries often compete with each other there for contracts, which weakens the EU’s hand. Contacts in Brazil single out Germany, Spain and Britain as the European partners that help them move into higher-value production, but these countries do not coordinate their efforts.[1]
Team Europe, the EU’s framing of national governments and EU institutions working in concert, still lacks a clear strategy, so member states often act in an uncoordinated way. Yet even big member states such as Germany cannot build strong enough partnerships to counter China’s dominance alone. This makes coordination all the more important. One option, as in formal climate negotiations, is to name coordinators from different member states to approach different key countries—not to replace bilateral contacts but to improve synergies and information flow. Such coordinators could sometimes be from member states with historical links, but more often it would be useful to avoid the tensions that might exist and have more “neutral” EU member states take the lead.
An alternative, or complementary, route comes from the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, which proposes improving dialogue among member states and forming more issue-specific, informal groups to strengthen cooperation.
The two methods can be combined. Either way, the EU should add staff for climate and economic security diplomacy in Brussels and at its delegations, and sharpen coordination at the core of the commission, working closely with the European External Action Service. Above all, leaders must feel political urgency and accept that no single member state can meet these challenges alone.
A relay can carry the transition
There is a clear geoeconomic and geopolitical case for global partnerships around the green transition. Yet the EU does not signal that decarbonisation is central to its interests in the way that it approaches relationships with partner countries. Like the sled teams that carried the serum to Nome, the EU must mobilise around this goal to ensure that the run is completed.
A relay team can deliver competitiveness, security and decarbonisation to Europeans and beyond, so the EU must prioritise building its relay team around the partners this paper identifies. In all these partnerships, it should go in with scale and speed, and use every tool this paper sets out, from tailored offers and green markets to guarantees, research and training, regulatory know-how and coalitions. With so many immediate crises and tensions in today’s geopolitics, too few leaders are willing to speak out in favour of action to mitigate the climate crisis, which is the most consequential for the world of tomorrow. The beauty of a relay partnership approach for the EU is that it will speak for itself, achieving results on security and prosperity, and slowing climate breakdown.
Acknowledgments:
The authors are grateful to the many colleagues in the ECFR network and far beyond for their time and conversations that have informed the thinking laid out in this paper. Carla Moll’s and Marissa Gillwald’s expert management of the research project leading up to it has been invaluable. Kat Fytatzi’s brilliant editing and creative imagery have really brought the argument to life. This paper has been supported by the European Climate Foundation. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this publication lies with the authors. The European Climate Foundation cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained or expressed therein.
About the authors
Susi Dennison is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and director of ECFR’s European Power programme. Her topics of focus include strategy, politics and cohesion in European foreign policy; climate and energy; migration; and the toolkit for Europe as a global actor.
Mats Engström is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in Stockholm. He has been involved in EU policymaking and analysis since the 1980s, including as deputy state secretary at the Swedish Ministry for the Environment and as a political adviser to the foreign minister.
Source: This article was published by ECFR
[1] Authors’ interviews, July-September 2026.
The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of their individual authors.
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