Ten EU governments are pressuring the European Commission to allow industry to continue polluting as much as a decade longer than current rules allow, according to a letter seeking to influence the design of Friday’s Emissions Trading System reform, seen by POLITICO.
The letter — led by Poland and Italy, and signed by Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia — calls for a string of changes to soften the EU carbon market in the upcoming legislative review.
The letter is a clear signal to Commission President Ursula van der Leyen that a blocking minority in the Council of the EU exists if new ETS legislation doesn’t satisfy them.
The Commission is set to release its review of ETS legislation Friday. The 10 countries want to lower the so-called linear reduction factor — the annual rate at which pollution is reduced — so it takes as much as 11 years longer for the emissions cap to reach zero.
