The EU Circular Economy Act risks missing the boat on ship recycling and true circularity in Shipbuilding News 05/05/2026 On Thursday 30/04, the final stakeholder workshop on the European Commission’s impact assessment for the Circular Economy Act (CEA) on the Circular Economy Act assessment was held. NGO Shipbreaking Platform is concerned that the current proposal risks squandering one of Europe’s most significant untapped material banks, end-of-life ships, and with it, a concrete opportunity for steel decarbonisation and material resilience. The CEA is expected to build a Single Market for secondary raw materials and stimulate demand for high-quality recycled content. Yet, without unlocking new material streams such as ship recycling, it will fall short its objectives. Why does ship recycling matter? Scale of the opportunity: the Platform’s research shows that EU/EFTA-owned ships could supply up to 12 million tonnes of high-quality steel scrap per year to the European economy over the next decade; Material recovery: up to 95% of a ship’s weight can be recovered as high-quality scrap, representing a major secondary raw material stream for the EU steel industry, and leading to the sector’s decarbonisation; The EU stake: companies based in the EU and EFTA own about one-third of the world’s fleet, placing Europe in a pivotal position to lead the transition. The workshop revealed a critical blind spot of the proposed Act. The impact assessment focused almost exclusively on waste management measures: extensions to the WEEE Directive, construction and demolition waste, and harmonisation of End-of-Waste and EPR schemes. Higher levels of the circularity hierarchy, prevention, reuse, repair and refurbishment, were largely absent. Primary focus on waste narrows down the Circular Economy Act simply to the waste management legislation, neglecting the very need of addressing material use throughout their lifecycle before they become a waste. NGO Shipbreaking Platform finds the