The European Commission’s Executive Vice-President in charge of the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, expressed serious reservations about the possibility of the Commission intervening to regulate the price of carbon under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) on Friday 7 May, during a video conference organised by the European University Institute.
“It’s a market and we should be very careful not to intervene because that would create non-market-based price and that would absolutely undermine the credibility of the Emissions Trading System”, the Vice-President stressed.
The statement comes as some industries and EU Member States, particularly Poland, are concerned about the recent sharp rise in the price of carbon, which is currently around €50 per tonne of CO2.
“If we want to achieve our goals, I think the price should be much higher than €50. But that’s up to the market”, Mr Timmermans also said, adding that the evolution of the carbon price in recent weeks is partly due to the market’s expectations of the Commission’s ‘FIt for 55’ legislative package.
The Dutchman further explained that the postponement of this legislative package to 14 July (see EUROPE 12711/18) was decided in order to ensure that the institution would be able to present all the proposals included in the package on the same day, an option preferred to splitting the package and presenting some proposals earlier than others.
According to Mr Timmermans, this solution is preferable in order to avoid Member States examining each proposal in isolation. “We need a package to show that it is fair on everyone even though there is a part of it you don’t like”, he said. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)