Setting aside some post-2012 EU Emissions Trading System carbon allowances is still on the table in talks between the European Parliament and national governments on energy efficiency, the lead EP negotiator said Tuesday.
"The parliament is still pushing for a set-aside in the EU's energy efficiency directive," Luxembourg Green MEP Claude Turmes told reporters in Brussels.
Turmes is leading the EP's informal negotiations to agree a final version of a draft EU energy efficiency directive with the European Commission and the EU Council, representing the EU's 27 national governments.
He said there would be a second session of such three-way negotiations Tuesday, and that he expected such informal talks to continue into June.
The EC proposed the directive in June in an attempt to increase the EU's chances of meeting a voluntary goal to improve energy efficiency by 20% by 2020.
The EP's energy committee took the opportunity to add to the draft a call for the EC to monitor the EU's Emissions Trading System and to propose before 2013 "appropriate measures" to support it, including possibly withholding some Phase III carbon allowances.
Phase III of the EU ETS runs from January 1, 2013 to the end of 2020.
The EP's move was in response to the current glut of Phase II allowances created by the global recession which can be carried over into Phase III and are expected to keep EU carbon prices very low until 2020.
The EU Council, however, has said repeatedly that the EU energy efficiency directive is not the right instrument to tackle problems in the ETS.
