Baltic and European news
MEPs and governments reach EU climate compromise
Monday 15 December 2008
Negotiators from the European parliament and the French EU presidency reached an informal inter-institutional agreement on all outstanding elements of the EU's climate and energy package on Saturday morning.
Details of the agreement have not emerged but it is highly unlikely that the key elements differ from a position adopted unanimously at a summit chaired by French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Brussels on Friday (EED 12/12/08 http://www.endseurope.com/17246). MEPs had an indirect input to the summit's decision-making through earlier "trialogue" meetings with government officials.
The compromise texts will now be debated and voted on by the European parliament's last plenary session of the year in Strasbourg this week. If, as is expected, the assembly backs the texts unchanged, they will later be rubber-stamped by ministers as a first-reading agreement. They would then be issued as EU law.
But if the parliament makes any changes to the compromise deals, ministers will be forced to accept these if they want to secure a first-reading agreement. Rejecting any of the changes would trigger a second reading and further EU negotiations.
The deals reached on Saturday concern a revision of the EU emission trading scheme (ETS), an "effort-sharing" proposal to cut national non-ETS emissions by on average 20 per cent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, and legislation to promote carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The plenary session will debate and vote on three other climate and energy laws on which compromises were reached earlier: a directive to promote renewables (EED 09/12/08 http://www.endseurope.com/17227), and proposals to cut CO2 emissions from cars (EED 02/12/08 http://www.endseurope.com/17193) and road fuels (EED 27/11/08 http://www.endseurope.com/17174).
Rapporteur MEPs for the three latest deals all said they were happy with the outcome. Irish centre-right MEP Avril Doyle said the ETS agreement was a "very good result and a balanced outcome between preserving the environmental integrity of the proposal and ensuring a level playing field for European industry."
Finnish Green MEP Satu Hassi said the effort-sharing deal was "a historical achievement" but said she could not feel "completely happy" because it would allow over half of national emission-cutting effort to be outsourced to non-EU countries.
British Liberal MEP Chris Davies had fought hard for CCS proposal to be supported by funding from the sale of ETS carbon allowances. He estimated that revenue from the 300 million allowances allocated for CCS could fund nine or ten such plants. In March 2007, EU leaders advocated building at least 12 by 2015 (EED 09/03/07 http://www.endseurope.com/13199).
Follow-up: EU council of ministers http://www.consilium.eu.int/en/summ.htm, tel: +32 2 285 6211 and European parliament
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/, tel: +32 2 284 2111, plus parliament press release
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/064-44461-343-12-50-911-20081213IPR44460-08-12-2008-2008-false/default_en.htm. See also reactions from Doyle
(EPP) and Socialists http://www.socialistgroup.org/gpes/newsdetail.do?lg=en&id=108878&href=home.
ENDS Europe Daily is Europe's leading environmental news service. A free trial is available by clicking on the following link: http://www.endseuropedaily.com/web/helcom.