19/04/2023 (Agence Europe) – On Wednesday, 19 April, each Member State approved, in its turn, the agreement reached with the European Parliament on the Social Climate Fund, which is meant to mitigate the socioeconomic impact of extending the ‘ETS’ (carbon trading system) to include road transport and buildings in 2027. The European Parliament had adopted it in plenary the previous day (see EUROPE 13164/18). Member States’ approval of this agreement was accompanied by statements from Lithuania, Poland, and the European Commission. Poland—opposed to extending the ETS—explains that while it supports the idea of allocating additional funding to compensate for the costs of the transition, “making the creation of the Social Climate Fund conditional on the introduction of solutions that place an additional burden on households [...] is inappropriate”. The dossier will be definitively adopted in the EU Council on 25 April. Link to the statements: https://aeur.eu/f/6dt (SP)