The Council of the European Union and the European Parliament failed to make major progress on the revision of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) on Monday 10 October at the end of the second round of interinstitutional negotiations ('trilogues').
This session “has been a waste of time (...) We did not make any progress”, said Michael Bloss (German), the Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur on this dossier. He criticised the attitude of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council, which he said “had no mandate to negotiate”.
Less critical than his colleague, Parliament’s rapporteur Peter Liese (EPP, German), said the meeting had produced “very concrete results”.
Negotiators agreed to keep the ‘benchmark’ currently used to determine free greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions allowances for the steel sector, the rapporteur explained. They thus reject the European Commission’s proposal to update this reference value to take account of technological progress in this sector.
They also agreed not to change the compensation for indirect CO2 costs.
Despite this progress, Liese said it will not be possible to conclude the HTA before the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, from 6 to 18 November.
The next trilogue is scheduled for 10 November. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)