On the evening of Wednesday 13 September in Strasbourg, the European Parliament and Council negotiators will meet up in an attempt to push forward with the proposal on the structural reform of the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) for 2020-2021. This information was confirmed by the Estonian President of the Council on Friday evening 8 September. This will be the fourth inter-institutional negotiators’ meeting (Parliament/Council/Commission) (see EUROPE 11828).
On the same day, the permanent representatives of the member states meeting at Coreper approved an expanded negotiating mandate for the Estonian Presidency of the Council.
One source informed EUROPE, “A majority of countries expressed a wish for the Presidency to attempt to move forward on this dossier. The question of which tools the Commission is expected to provide to Parliament and the Council to help each institution measure the impact of any changes to the structure of the text was not discussed. The negotiators will talk about this on Wednesday”.
The trialogue is planned for 7pm on Wednesday and is expected to continue to focus on technical questions.
By granting the Presidency an expanded mandate, the Council is allowing it to propose a slight shift towards the European Parliament on the three pillars in the legislation: strengthening the ETS, the fight against carbon leakage and solidarity funds. The changes to the thresholds for the qualitative assessment of carbon leakage, as well as production and capacity levels (the volume of allowances) in solidarity funds are also among the possible concessions. The aim is to gauge the position of the European Parliament’s negotiators and move forward together towards an agreement. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)