BRUSSELS — The campaign to soften the European Union’s most important climate law just got a lot more organized.
On Tuesday, nine EU member countries including Italy, Poland, Hungary and Greece met in Brussels to coordinate their mutual concerns with the Emissions Trading System, three people familiar with the meeting told POLITICO.
The Tuesday meeting counted the Visegrád group — Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland — along with Austria, Romania, Croatia, Greece and Italy, all countries struggling with high energy costs.
A review of the European cap-and-trade system, which forces big polluters to pay for their emissions of planet-warming gases, is due from the EU executive in July, but recent rumbles about its future gathered steam in February amid growing concerns about the competitiveness of European industry. Since then, the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has shocked global energy markets and added to concerns that the ETS is pushing up costs for energy-intensive industries.
