Türkiye is the EU’s largest supplier of CBAM goods by weight: 14.8 Mt in 2025, up from 11.8 Mt a year earlier. About 41 % of that — 6.1 Mt — is cement and clinker. And for cement, the Turkish table in the EU’s default value regulation is empty.
An empty row has a price
Annex I to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2621 lists default values by country. Where a country is listed but a product shows “–”, the regulation says the value for “other countries and territories” must be used. That fallback is designed to be cautious, which means it is high. For grey clinker, the 2026 values compare like this:
| Origin | Grey clinker, 2026 default | CBAM €/t 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Türkiye | – (fallback) | as other countries |
| Egypt | 1.397 | €62 |
| Algeria | 1.408 | €62 |
| Ukraine | 1.507 | €71 |
| Tunisia | 0.968 | €26 |
| Other countries | 1.551 | €74 |
Across all CBAM goods, 41 % of Türkiye’s tonnage falls back to the “other countries” value — the highest share among large suppliers. In the default-value scenario Turkish cement alone carries an exposure of €458 m in 2026, rising to €935 m by 2034.
For Turkish cement exporters, verified installation data is not an optimisation. It is the difference between a national and a worst-case assumption.
What it means for buyers in Europe
- Importers of Turkish cement or clinker who rely on defaults pay the fallback rate. Ask suppliers for verified emissions from the start.
- Türkiye is building its own emissions trading system, with a pilot from 2026 covering cement among other sectors. A carbon price paid there could eventually reduce the CBAM bill — see carbon prices abroad.
- The Commission must review the default values by the end of 2027; a Turkish cement value may appear then.
More on the trade route in cement and clinker: a Mediterranean story, and the full country profile for Türkiye.