Four countries not ready for Emissions Trading

The EU’s Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, has said that Greece, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic are not in a position to take part in  the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) starting on 1 January 2005. Nevertheless, they are due to begin trading CO2 allowances within a few days  as all have already submitted draft National Allocation Plans (NAPs) to the European Commission – reports Cembureau’s informative Eurobriefs.

A first written warning has been sent to Greece, which will  probably notify its plan just before the end of December 2004 to the European Commission. The Greek NAP was published on 21 December 2004, with  just 3 days left to industry to comment. The NAPs state how EU countries  plan to allocate allowances for emissions during the first Kyoto period (1 January 2005 – 31 December 2007) and must be approved by the Commission to  ensure fair competition and allocation of allowances.

Meanwhile, the Commission decided to postpone until 3 January 2005 the approval of the  plans from Spain, Hungary, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta. No major changes are  expected to be made following the Commission’s assessment. At the same time, the Commission must give its final verdict on the revised UK NAP.