The Prime Ministers of five Member States (Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) sent a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, on Wednesday 24 March, asking them to maintain the existing rules for setting national emission reduction targets for sectors not covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
These targets are defined by the EU Effort Sharing Regulation (2018/842), which sets binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions for each EU country from 2021 to 2030.
However, in June the Commission will present a proposal to revise this regulation to bring it into line with the EU’s new 2030 climate target, which has yet to be adopted by the co-legislators as part of the ‘Climate Act’ (the previous 2030 target was a reduction in emissions of at least 40% compared to 1990 levels).
For the Prime Ministers who signed the letter, it is essential that national emission reduction targets continue to be set “according to the principle of fairness, taking into account GDP per capita of all EU Member States”.
Changing the rules “could increase the risk of energy poverty in low-income Member States” and lead to these states having to “make substantially more emission reductions than high-income Member States”, which could “put their growth and economic recovery at risk”, they say.
The five countries therefore call on the European Commission to “provide members of the European Council in due time with an appropriate assessment of maintaining the current methodology before it concludes on the further guidance for the implementation of 2030 target”.
They also ask that the European Council provide further guidance on this issue as soon as possible, possibly in April.
See the letter: https://bit.ly/3m8wRCn (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)