Council of Member States votes in favour of negotiations with European Parliament
The Permanent Representatives of the EU Member States agreed today on a temporary reduction in emissions trading allowances to be auctioned (so-called backloading). This paves the way for negotiations with the European Parliament and the EU Commission.
Germany agreed and Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier welcomed the decision: "Just a few days ahead of the climate change conference in Warsaw the EU has demonstrated that we take climate change very seriously."
The backloading proposal provides for the auctioning of a total of 900 million allowances from the current auction to be postponed to 2019 and 2020 as a short-term response to the extreme surplus of allowances at the end of 2012. This surplus was mainly due to the economic and financial crises but also due to the extensive use of allowances from international climate protection projects.