Brussels, 08/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is already working on future provisions to fight carbon leakage post-2020, as part of the emission quotas trading system (ETS). Hence the public consultation it launched on Thursday 8 May to identify what all players concerned believe are the best options, and to gather as many contributions as possible by 31 July.
All stakeholder citizens and organisations, in particular representatives of industry, unions, NGOs and public authorities, are invited to respond to an online questionnaire.
The questions mainly cover the number of quotas to be given over to preventing the risk of the relocation of high energy-consuming industries exposed to strong international competition and on the future role of the allocation of quotas free of charge and support to industrial innovation.
Presenting its proposed integrated action framework for the climate and energy policies up to 2030, the Commission stressed that, in the absence of comparable efforts on the part of other major economies, a free-of-charge allocation system would be kept in place and improved to guarantee the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries in Europe.
Readers may recall that, for the period 2015-2020 (final years of the third trading period of the ETS), the Commission has just presented a draft updated list of the sectors exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage and which will therefore receive a higher number of free quotas than the others (see EUROPE 11073). (AN)