Luxembourg, 24/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Court of First Instance has judged that the United Kingdom had the right to propose amendments to its plan for the allocation of greenhouse gas emission allowances (NAP), even if these amendments resulted in an increase in the total quantity of emission allowances following the adoption by the European Commission of its decision concerning that Member State, a Court communication indicates.
Limiting this right would negate the point of the public consultation envisaged in the directive 2003/87 of 13 October 2003 on greenhouse gas emissions trading, the public's observations would be purely theoretical if amendments which could be proposed for the NAP were limited to those envisaged by the Commission, and nothing in the directive rules out taking account of the results of a public consultation requiring a increase in allowances, said the Court, which rejects the Commission's argument that this increase will have a destabilising impact on the allowance market. The Commission had not demonstrated, it said, that the UK's intention to allocate a total of 736 Mt CO2 - which is an increase of 2.7% in its allowances - would be able to destabilise the market when this intention had been announced seven weeks before the market was even opened. Furthermore, it concludes, on the date when the UK proposed its modifications - 10 November 2004 - the Commission still had not taken a decision on the NAPs of nine Member States.
British MEP Caroline Lucas was indignant over this decision by the Court. In a press release, the UK Green accused Tony Blair of having undermined the EU's emissions trading scheme, adding that his only hope of maintaining the slightest credibility on climate change would be to obtain an agreement, at next week's conference in Montréal, on a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, this time based on binding objectives, not just voluntary ones.