The Environment Council discussed the latest Presidency compromise proposal on the EU emissions trading scheme and reached general approach. The proposal on ETS revision has been discusses for more than 18 months. Based on this political agreement the Council will enter into negotiations with the European Parliament soon.
In the debate for Hungary, the guiding principle were to safeguard competitiveness of the EU and Hungarian industry and boost economy. Our aim is to design an ETS framework, which does not endanger competitiveness, but on the contrary, supports economic growth and job creation in the sectors across the EU. For these reasons, one of the most important issues was how to set the rules right for carbon leakage assessments. Hungary is of the opinion that the EU ETS provisions should be set in a way to avoid carbon leakage and investment leakage, and at the same time ensure industrial competitiveness.
The Council also tackled other climate related topics. Miguel Arias Cañete, climate and energy commissioner briefed ministers about the proposal on rules for reducing emissions from aviation under Emissions Trading System following the ICAO agreement reached last year. The Commissioner also informed ministers about the low-emission mobility strategy adopted in June 2016 and the possible use of unspent funds under NER 300 innovation programme in this context. The Netherlands and France drew Member States attention to the importance of implementation of the Paris Agreement and the related international developments. As a major signal, the two Ministers called for the completion of the Paris Agreement ratification’s process by all EU Member States, and jointly, for the completion of the final step regarding the process of ratification of the Doha amendment to the Kyoto Protocol.
