Brussels, 25/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - The attempt by MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands) to force the European Commission to review its draft list of energy-intensive industrial sectors and sub-sectors that are at risk of carbon leakage and which, under the ETS, would thus be awarded free quotas for the period from 2015 to 2019 narrowly failed in the Parliament environment committee on Tuesday 24 September. The objection raised by Eickhout - not to remove the possibility of free allocations, but so that the Commission bring forward a proposal in line with its own impact assessment, with a reference price per tonne of carbon closer to reality than the €30 that was finally put forward - was rejected by 34 votes to 30, with 3 abstentions. The list as it stood was, therefore, approved by the committee, much to the satisfaction of the EPP and the ECR.
In Eickhout's view, this list undermines the effectiveness of the ETS since the industries responsible for 95% of CO2 emissions are all on the list. In addition, in its impact study, the Commission states that, in the worst-case scenario in 2020, the price of carbon would be €12 per tonne (compared with €5 currently). It must not fall to the taxpayer to finance an industry that does not need it, Eickhout stated. He pointed out that the Commission was perfectly able immediately to bring forward a new list that was in line with its own impact assessment with a more realistic, though still high, price of €16.5 per tonne, and he criticised the Commission for not making public the impact assessment. The EPP, on the other hand, felt that any delay in approving the list would cause legal uncertainty and send the wrong signal to investors. It considered that a new list could penalise the companies which had already invested in modern technologies, given that the free allocation is only proposed for the top 10% of the best performing companies, by sector, in terms of their emissions. The current list expires at the end of the year. (AN)