Brussels, 18/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The road is now officially clear for the creation of the stability reserve for the European carbon market, aiming to remedy the problems with the EU emissions quota trading system (ETS).
On Friday 18 September, the Council of the EU formally adopted the decision for this reserve to be created in 2018 and for surplus quotas to be placed directly into the reserve from 1 January 2019 onwards (see EUROPE 11359 and 11354).
This is a joint decision of the Parliament and the Council modifying directive 2003/87/EEC which instituted the ETS. It was adopted without debate, by qualified majority, on the sidelines of the meeting of the Environment Council.
A number of delegations (Cyprus, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Croatia) voted against and their statements were included in the minutes of the session. This market stability reserve aims to remedy the surplus of quotas on the market, which caused the price per tonne of carbon to plummet and prevented the system from playing its role to encourage investments in clean technologies and renewable energies. (Aminata Niang)