Energy Ministers take close look at competitiveness in ETS design

Worried about potentially conflicting issues on climate change and competition the EU Energy Council, March 14th, said it is looking forward to "Completing in a timely manner the review of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), with a view to furthering its role as an instrument to achieve climate change objectives in a cost-effective manner, taking all relevant elements into account. These elements should include competitiveness, in particular of the energy-intensive industries, the need to improve long term certainty on the ETS design, the effect of the ETS on security of supply, energy efficiency, energy markets and prices, the energy-mixes, growth potential and the industry structure of Member States, and an analysis of national allocation plans".
We believe best way ahead is to allocate allowances in such way that EU wide industry sectors have comparable CO2 mitigation efforts; hence they operate in an Internal Market. That the Commission asked some Member States to strengthen the next Allocation Plan does not need to lead to competition problems. That call is focussed on the National Allocation Plan as a whole, covering all sectors. The Burden Sharing allows for differering national targets, while giving EU wide indusrtial sectors the same (benchmark) treatment.

She is also interested in "implementation of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms in particular the CDM". The Spring EU Council will further discuss the issue. (see Conclusions)