Brussels, 21/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - At 8.00am on Monday 21 March, four national emissions registries for online transactions on the European carbon market - those of Finland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden - resumed normal operations. The news was announced by the European Commission on Friday 18 March, following completion of its review of the independent security reports submitted by the four registries.
This decision now means that 19 registries have re-opened after transactions were suspended at 7.00pm on 19 January, following cases of cyber-theft.
The Commission says that these countries have given “reasonable assurances” that the minimum security requirements are in place following the incident which harmed the integrity and reputation of the European carbon market put in place by the ETS directive.
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom and Norway (a non-EU country taking part in the ETS) have all previously been authorised by the Commission to resume EU Emissions Trading Scheme operations. (A.N./transl.rt)