Brussels, 02/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 29 April, the European Commission rejected the revised Estonian National Allocation Plan (NAP) for allocating carbon dioxide (CO2) emission allowances for the 2008-2012 trading period. The main reason was that the average total quantity of allowances Estonia proposed to allocate to its installations over the period was too high. Estonia must now submit a new NAP as quickly as possible.
Directive 2003/87/EC, which put in place the European emissions trading scheme (EU ETS), establishes arrangements for allocating quotas to companies and requires member states to submit a five-year national quota allocation plan for Commission approval. In 2007, the Commission decided that the Estonian plan was not compatible with the EU ETS directive. The Estonian government appealed against this decision at the Court of Justice, which, in 2009, annulled the Commission's decision on grounds of procedure, not material assessment of the NAP. The Commission lodged an appeal which is still pending. On 11 December 2009, the Commission replaced the decision annulled by the Court, reducing the originally proposed level of allocation and requiring Tallinn to submit a revised NAP. This was done in February 2011 but, once again, the Commission turned down the plan. The Commission takes the view that the proposed total quantity of allowances is “more than is likely to be needed”. The Commission considers, too, that the proposed allocations are not compatible with other EU legislative and policy instruments, in particular, the internal energy market. (L.C./transl.rt)