As negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union meet on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 December to try to finalise the revision of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), the Parliament’s rapporteur Peter Liese (EPP, German) shared his feelings with the press two days before this (final?) session of inter-institutional negotiations (‘trilogues’).
“This is the biggest trilogue I have ever experienced”, warned Mr Liese, who has been an MEP since 1994.
While he hopes that this ‘jumbo trilogue’ - negotiators will discuss the ETS, the Social Climate Fund and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) - will not spill over into Sunday, the rapporteur predicts “long and very difficult” discussions.
He said that the discussions on the ETS part of the European Parliament/EU Council agreement on ‘REPowerEU’, concluded on the night of 13-14 December (see EUROPE 13084/15), had been the longest of all the items negotiated.
He said the agreement was a first step in the right direction for the Parliament in view of the ‘jumbo trilogue’, as MEPs had established that 40% of the €20 billion subsidy package would come from the anticipated auctioning of greenhouse gas emission allowances in the ETS (2024 instead of 2027).
The 40% compromise “is not really balanced, as the EU Council wanted 25% and we wanted 100%”, a parliamentary source told EUROPE.
For his part, the rapporteur assured that his negotiating team “will fight for a new step (in the direction of the Parliament’s position) this weekend”.
Strengthening the Innovation Fund
In particular, Mr Liese intends to “find money on Friday or Saturday to increase the Innovation Fund compared to what the EU Council has in its mandate”.
He further stated that the three institutions “have pledged to push for an increase in the Innovation Fund compared to the current level in the trilogue on the ETS”.
However, this is only a statement negotiated during the trilogue on ‘REPowerEU’, a source told EUROPE, fearing that it would have no influence on the negotiations on Friday and Saturday.
Many dividing lines
In addition, other major policy issues continue to divide the co-legislators, such as the creation of a second ETS for emissions from the heating of buildings and road transport (ETS2) - an issue directly related to the Social Climate Fund (see EUROPE 13084/22).
The co-legislators will also have to agree on the phasing out of free emission allowances as the CBAM comes into force. The provisional agreement on this dossier, reached on the night of 12/13, is conditional on the agreement regarding the ETS. “I hope that the EU Council understands that a deal is only possible if we have a good solution on exports (see EUROPE 13083/23)”, said Liese. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)