Improvement of the Commission proposal / EU action better than national measures

The European Parliament has voted in the second round for the strengthening of the European emissions trading. To stabilize the system certificates are to be withdrawn temporally from the market. Initially, a price of about 30 Euros was calculated but in the last months it was constantly below 5 Euros
With such a low price there is only little incentive for investments in low-carbon technologies and there are no revenues for important projects financed through climate programs.

Against the initial Commission proposal the European Parliament adopted three major improvements: First, there will be an impact assessment for those sectors exposed to the risk of carbon leakage. Second, the number of allowances to be withdrawn from the market is limited to 900 Million. And thirdly, the intervention has to be a one-time-measure. Further improvements adopted by the Environment Committee have not been adopted in Plenary, because the EPP group decided on Tuesday to withdraw its support of the negotiated compromises. Because of that Plenary adopted today a stronger version of the text than foreseen in Committee.


I'm very happy that we managed to achieve a positive decision. In the last years our ETS has developed to an export hit. Many areas in the world such as Australia, New Zealand and California have already adopted similar systems. Other countries such as China and South Korea plan to do so, too. Lately the credibility of our system was called in question. Now we have a first step towards a real reform. But further steps have to follow. For the industry European Action is in my view better than expensive national regulations," said Dr. Peter Liese, environmental expert of the largest parliamentary group (EPP - Christian democrats).