Brussels, 02/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - There is no question that Poland, which is highly dependent on coal, as well as its central and eastern European neighbours, will allow an early entry into force of the structural reforms for the Emissions Trading System (ETS) in the EU by setting up a coal market stability reserve. On Monday 2 March in Brussels, Martin Korolec, the Polish Minister for the environment confirmed this position and also announced on this occasion, his country's interpretation of the post-2020 draft reform expected by the Commission this summer.
Addressing a small group of journalists, he provided assurances that there was a “minority blockage” at the Council, which would oppose early application of the stability reserve. The Polish Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz, said the same thing in a letter addressed to the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, at the end of February. Korolec stated: “Poland wants to stick to 2021, in compliance with the Commission's initial proposal. In the conclusions (from the European Council: Ed) last October, we approved the reserve on the basis of the Commission proposal of January 2014”. He was speaking at the very time that negotiations on this draft legislation are about to begin, in principle on 10 March next, following the EP environment committee vote in favour of an earlier start date in 2018 for the reserve to absorb the expected 2 billion allocations after 2020, in an attempt to boost coal prices per ton and allow the ETS to play its role as an incentive for investment in clean technologies and energies. (see EUROPE 11262)
The Minister sarcastically added: “I'm not aware of a single company calling for higher coal prices in Poland”. On a more serious note, the arguments he put forward are as follows: the EU has set out its target for CO2 emissions reduction of 20% by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels), “early application of the reserve would mean that we would have a higher reduction target up to 2020”; - this is not the draft upon which an agreement was obtained; this is not part of the international negotiations; the fund for modernising the coal plants begins in 2020 and not earlier; the ETS is “a difficult and unpredictable tax that creates uncertainty for electricity sector investors”.
With regard to post-2020 ETS reform, Poland supports dynamic allocation of quotas based on emissions that are really produced and not on historical emissions that go back to a level of emissions produced two years earlier but without any control afterwards, explained Korolec, which was fairer. He added that the decarbonisation of the economy by 2050 was neither realistic nor feasible. (Aminata Niang).