The first quarter of this year saw a significant acceleration in European countries’ efforts to develop clean industry. In France, the winning projects were selected under the ‘Grands Projets Industriels de Décarbonation’ programme, which offers grants for large-scale facilities, with the level of support contingent on CO2 emission reductions. By the end of the year, these projects will receive as much as €1.6 billion in public funding. Good practices are also emerging from Germany and Greece, where mechanisms based on CISAF (Clean Industrial State Aid Framework) are being applied to develop domestic cleantech solutions.

Currently, CISAF-based solutions have already been implemented in countries where over 70% of European industry is located. Unfortunately, Poland is lagging behind in this area, which puts us at risk of losing competitiveness and seeing investment flow to other parts of Europe.

“Quarterly Monitoring of Polish Industrial Transformation 1/2026. Delayed Start in the European Race” opens a new series of cross-sectional analyses of progress in implementing the main demands of Polish companies and industrial associations set out in the Pact for Polish Industry. In it, we show in which areas of support for industrial transformation Poland has managed to make progress, and where changes are proceeding too slowly or not at all.

The first quarter of 2026 showed that in the race to build a clean industry, Poland is still in the starting blocks. Companies are waiting for concrete details from the government regarding the announced industrial transformation strategy. Meanwhile, solutions under the new CISAF state aid rules have already been implemented by countries accounting for over 70 per cent of European industry, including key economies such as Germany, France and Italy. Poland – as an economy aspiring to a permanent place in the G20 and a country deriving 20 per cent of its GDP from industry – should be among the nations setting the pace for European industrial transformation. The greatest risk for Poland is not decarbonisation, but passivity in creating tools to support the transition. “If the Polish government does not speed up the implementation of mechanisms to finance the development of clean industry based on the new European state aid rules, we risk a decline in the country’s investment attractiveness and an outflow of new projects to other EU countries that are acting more swiftly – comments Aleksander Śniegocki, President of the Reform Institute.

The authors of the Quarterly point out that since the start of this year, no breakthrough has been achieved in Poland across any of the seven pillars of the Pact:

• Industry Strategy – a lack of specific commitments regarding content and timetable in government announcements. The submission of the aKPEIK (Draft National Energy Climate Plan) to the European Commission is already 21 months behind schedule.

• Energy Transition Fund – no progress.

• Lack of systematic dialogue with stakeholders.

However, there are positive signs that may herald a shift in the government’s approach to tackling industrial decarbonisation seriously:

• Improvements to certain regulations – the amendment to the Grid Act could be a systemic step towards accelerating investment in clean technologies.

• Innovate Poland – BGK (Polish Development Bank) is finalising work on a strategy designed to support investments in Polish enterprises totalling PLN 4–8 billion.

• The Ministry of Development and Technology has begun work on CISAF.

Delays in preparing the strategy are making it difficult for Polish enterprises to plan their further development and investments. Without an industrial strategy, new support tools and a systematic dialogue with business, it is difficult to talk about the race for competitiveness. Poland has started this race late, but it can draw on good examples of effective industrial policy in Europe. France combines climate targets with multi-billion-euro investment support for selected industrial projects. Germany, for its part, is using CISAF to scale entire value chains around clean technologies. The Polish government can still help domestic industry make up this ground. However, this depends on a proactive stance from the government in Warsaw. Companies are waiting for a coherent plan for industrial decarbonisation and the presentation of a set of concrete tools to support competitiveness as part of a systemic dialogue with the administration – emphasises Maciej Lipiński, climate and energy policy analyst and one of the authors of the Quarterly.

The publication is available in Polish here.