Six EU member countries have called on the European Commission to overhaul parts of the Emissions Trading System to give heavy industry more free emission permits, in a bid to help EU manufacturing.
Bulgaria, Czechia, Greece, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia released a joint nonpaper seen by POLITICO, warning the current number of free carbon permits sectors receive to pollute under the ETS needs dramatic readjustments or there could be wholesale losses of strategic industries.
Citing the “new reality” of the ongoing energy crisis, they argue the current formula determining benchmarks — based on the 10 percent best polluters, per sector — for free carbon allowances should include more permits and be temporarily frozen at the 2021 to 2025 levels.
According to the six member countries, the new benchmark figures — released in early May, after weeks of delays — still “pose significant challenges and risks for Europe’s energy-intensive industries” and do not provide enough relief.
