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In this contribution we explain the mechanism of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) for greenhouse gases and explore into its likely sustainability impact on European industry. In doing so, we focus on energy-intensive industries like cement, steel and aluminium production as well as on the emerging hydrogen economy. Our hypothesis is that while the impact of the EU ETS on energyintensive industries is severe and likely to be negative, the impacts on the emerging hydrogen economy are almost negligible. If that proves to be correct, the ETS would have a bias towards cost-increases for industry without fully exploiting the potential to stimulate innovation. Our interest thus is an analysis of expected structural changes in the European economy as a whole, where industries are scrutinized to adapt to climate policy while keeping core competences of energy intensive production along value chains, and others are challenged to radically innovate and to invent a new energy carrier such as hydrogen within existing energy markets.

After successfully implementing the European Economic and Monetary Union, we are currently realizing the failure of implementing a European constitution due to the selfish behavior of politicians and the rejection of this constitution in popular referenda by a vast majority of the French and Dutch voters in spring 2005. A year earlier, ten mostly former transition countries (e.g. Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia) entered the EU in May 2004 establishing a European Union of 25 members. Given this development, the following basic question arises: Which essential constitutional reforms (possibly ending in a European Federal Constitution) are needed? Due to the rejection of the European Constitution by the French and Dutch voters and due to the enlarged EU with 25 members, the “old” EU arrangements do not guarantee a smooth functioning of the institutions of the European Union with 25 quite different members, mainly different with respect to their economic development. Hence new institutional arrangements have to be developed and one possible reform step is a new but much less ambitious European Constitution. In order to avoid a major crisis of the functioning of this larger EU, the author proposes the idea, that some (albeit, minimal) European federal union will be necessary.