instruments, and this BEST group managed to persuadeenvironment commissioner Ritt Bjerrgaard to support emissions trading. This shouldbe seen in light of the need for new policy instruments: it had become clear that theproposed directive of the early 1990s on the carbon/energy tax was not going tomaterialize, and the energy products tax of 1997 would have to be watered downconsiderably in order to meet the requirement of unanimity.Second, the European Commission was also the central actor in the processof developing the initial design of the EU ETS. The Commission launched acomprehensive study programme based on external expertise to strengthen itsknowledge of emissions trading. This process served to clarify the basic designchoices of an EU ETS, such as cap-and-trade instead of baseline and credit, and thecrucial importance of effective monitoring, veriﬁcation and sanctions in the form ofstrong penalties.
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Third, the Commission crafted support and consensus by initiating Communitywide consultation processes. These processes served just as much as a tool for theCommission to build up knowledge, capacity and support for the EU ETS as achannel for actors to have their say. The consultation process resulted in generalsupport for the idea of emissions trading among Community institutions and nonstate actors. Beyond that, opinion varied widely on speciﬁc design features andlevels of harmonization.Emissions trading was easier for the Commission to sell to industry than taxes –and it was also sold well. The Commission emphasized different aspects of emissionstrading to different stakeholders. To industry, the instrument was framed as a costeffective tool that could even provide economic opportunities for shrinking emittersto sell allowances. To ENGOs (and the European Parliament), the instrument wasframed as environmentally effective, as it would automatically lead to the target/cap set (given various conditions). To governments, both these arguments werecombined and linked to implementation of the Burden-sharing Agreement and theKyoto Protocol targets. Emissions trading was thus ‘marketed’ as a magic formulafor development and environmental protection. This formula proved effective inreducing resistance and building support within the Commission, the EuropeanParliament, industry and ENGOs.Moreover, the Commission could count on support from the oil major BP(followed by Shell), which developed its own internal emissions trading system at thetime. The fact that one of the largest multinational oil companies in the world, whichmade a livelihood from two of the main causes of anthropogenic climate change(oil and gas), could embrace emissions trading gave the Commission a powerfulargument towards European industry in general. And major industry federations likeUNICE and EURELECTRIC were cautiously positive.The third proposition stated that the member-states changed their positionson emissions trading. According to this proposition, the Commission did not actindependently but on request from member-states and it anticipated broad-basedsupport. This proposition gained little empirical support.First, initially it was only the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Irelandthat supported emissions trading within the EU. Most of the other 10 members eitheropposed it or were indifferent to the idea of an EU ETS. The early support of the UKwas, however, politically important for the Commission as the UK had previouslycontributed to block the adoption of the common energy/carbon tax. The UK alsohad the formal opportunity to push for an EU ETS as it held the EU presidency inthe spring of 1998. On the other hand, we have found nothing to indicate that theCommission introduced the EU ETS idea in 1998 in response to a request from theUK or any other member-states.Second, the Commission could not anticipate broad-based support for an EU ETS.Initially, the Commission could count on support from only a few member-states.Responses to the Green Paper indicate that votes for and against emissions trading inthe year 2000 were roughly equal. Among those that were positive, positions variedwidely on degree of harmonization and speciﬁc design principles.Third, the Council of Ministers did not seriously discuss the EU ETS until2000. However, the Council of Ministers did (and with increasing intensity) request
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proposals from the Commission on effective policy instruments that could counteremission trends and bring the EU on a path towards complying with the KyotoProtocol. In this sense, we could say that the Council indirectly ‘requested’ the EUETS.These propositions vary in focus and empirical support, but all have somethingto contribute to increasing our understanding of what happened and why. Of them,it is clear that the proposition based on the intergovernmentalist approach gainedleast empirical support. Particularly two factors from the multi-level governanceand regime approaches pull in the same direction for understanding the initialintroduction of the idea in the spring of 1998: the inclusion of emissions trading inthe Kyoto Protocol, and the change in Commission personnel in favour of emissionstrading. These factors appear as necessary conditions for the introduction of the EUETS idea in the June 1998 Communication.First, the Kyoto Protocol set the target and the timeframe and suggested a newcost-effective policy instrument that the EU would have incentives for implementing.Second, the new economists working on climate change in DG Environment favouredeconomic policy instruments at EU level and recognized the potential of emissionstrading, particularly in light of the failure to get the EU carbon/energy tax adopted.Had it not been for those two factors, the EU ETS would probably not have beeninitiated, at least not so quickly.The international process also supported the development of the EU ETS bymaintaining the momentum through the Buenos Aires Plan of action. This plan wasenvisaged to pave the way for the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol at theJohannesburg Summit in 2002. In the next chapter, we shall see that this did nothappen, and that the further development of the EU ETS would be affected by theUS exit from the Kyoto Protocol. The EU ETS was initially framed as an instrumentfor implementing the Kyoto Protocol. In the next decision-making phase, we shallsee that it also became an instrument for saving the Kyoto Protocol.
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Chapter 5
Deciding on EU Emissions TradingIn this chapter, we narrow in on the decision-making phase of the EU EmissionsTrading Scheme. This phase ran from 2001 to the adoption of the ET Directive in2003 and the Linking Directive in 2004, which linked the EU ETS to internationalﬂexible mechanisms. The main question here is to what extent – and why – themember-states, the EU institutions and the climate regime affected the design andadoption of the EU ETS.We examine three propositions derived from three explanatory approaches:intergovernmentalism, multi-level governance and regime analysis. The ﬁrstproposition focuses on the position of the member-states, and holds that theEU ETS reﬂects the interests and preferences of the member-states. The secondproposition stipulates that the EU ETS reﬂects the positions of the EU institutions,rather than the positions of the member-states. Finally, we propose that the EUETS is more a result of external than internal driving forces. In line with thisassumption, we would expect the EU ETS to reﬂect developments within theclimate regime and the international emissions trading system rather than internalprocesses.Positions of the EU Member-statesAs noted in Chapter 3, the key elements of the ET directive proposed by the EuropeanCommission in October 2001 remained intact during the negotiations that led up tothe adoption of the ET Directive in October 2003, despite some design changes. Inline with our proposition that the EU ETS came to reﬂect the positions of the memberstates, this suggests that they agreed to the Commission proposal. The reason couldbe either that they had changed their preferences from the consultation process onthe Green Paper, when only a slight majority supported emissions trading and keycountries such as France and Germany were reluctant – or that various member-stateinterests were taken into account by the Commission in its ET directive proposal.The main question to be explored here is thus the extent to which and how thecommon position and the ﬁnal ET Directive reﬂected the interests and preferencesof the EU member-states.Proposing the ET DirectiveDid the interests and preferences of the member-states change from the Green Paperto the ET directive proposal? In January 2001, DG Environment started to draft theET directive on the basis of signiﬁcantly diverging member-state positions. Less
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than a year before, member-state responses to the Green Paper on emissions tradinghad showed that there were few areas of common understanding as to what an ETSshould look like (see Chapter 4). An ET directive proposal was planned beforethe resumed CoP-6 in Bonn in July. DG Environment ﬁnished the draft proposalin May and forwarded it to other DGs for interservice consultations. However,Environmental Commissioner Margot Wallström decided to postpone the proposaldue to opposition from several industry lobby groups.A new round of consultation with industry, ENGOs and member-states (plusthe European Economic Area (EEA) and accession countries) was convened on 4and 10 September respectively. The consultation meeting with the member-stateswas structured by the presentation of key questions prepared by the climate changeunit in DG Environment and based on the widely-leaked draft proposal.1 Allinvited stakeholders attended the meeting: 16 representatives from the Commissionrepresenting six different DGs, representatives from all member-states and mostEEA and accession countries. The minutes from the meeting indicate a signiﬁcantchange in member-state positions towards convergence around a common EU ETS,compared to the responses to the earlier Green Paper.2First, everyone supported the development of an emissions trading frameworkat EU level, and many member-states emphasized that national level schemes werenot attractive. Second, the overwhelming majority favoured a system commonto certain sectors based on a core harmonized list of activities. Third, there wasgeneral agreement that allowances should be allocated by the member-states withinthe constraints of the Burden-sharing Agreement. Fourth, there was widespreadagreement that there should be a common method for allocation of allowances.Finally, a large majority supported common monitoring, reporting and veriﬁcationstandards and harmonized penalties for non-compliance. The reasons for the latterprovision, which received strong support, were the market nature of emissionstrading and single-market considerations (Meadows 2006, 92).Despite the agreement on the main structure of the proposed scheme,disagreement surfaced on some important design elements. Most importantly, therewas disagreement on the legal nature of the scheme in the pre-2008 period. Some– particularly the UK, Germany and Finland – preferred an initial phase based on avoluntary scheme; others preferred a mandatory scheme. Second, there was no clearconvergence around whether allocations should be based on payment (auctioning),be free (grandfathering) or a combination. Although a majority preferred allocationfor free, a smaller group, led by Sweden, argued consistently for auctioning (Vis2006b, 190). Third, some preferred that the common list of sectors could be extendedvoluntarily by member-states (‘opt-in’), whereas others preferred a harmonized way
1 ENDS Daily (25 June 2001), ‘EU Climate Trading Scheme Set to Emerge’, Issue 1016.2 To our knowledge, there is no ofﬁcial record from this meeting with the memberstates. However, there is a draft summary record that gives the thrust of the main conclusions.European Commission (8 October 2001) Directorate General Environment Climate Change:Chairman’s Summary Record of Consultation Meeting with Member-States, EEA andAccession Countries. 10 September 2001. Brussels.
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of extension. Finally, positions varied on whether penalties should be based on onlya common underpinning, or full harmonization.Germany’s federal government, which had not expressed its position on the2000 Green Paper, submitted its position paper to the European Commission on 10September. Germany emphasized the effectiveness of the national voluntary climateagreements and proposed a pilot phase with voluntary participation for both companiesand member-states (Watanabe 2005). The German Emissions Trading Group (AGEmissionhandel, AGE), with broad-based participation from ministries, industry andENGOs, was also invited to the stakeholder consultations in September, where itsubmitted a separate position paper. After intense negotiations, the group submitteda compromise position paper along the same lines as the federal government, arguingfor a three-year pilot phase with voluntary participation. The position of the AGEwas based on a compromise between industries that preferred to continue with thevoluntary climate agreements and a few large companies that favoured emissionstrading. These position papers showed that Germany was struggling to speak withone voice, as internal disagreement would weaken its negotiating position in theCouncil. At this stage, Germany did not reject any form of emissions trading at EUlevel, but Germany’s opposition to mandatory participation in the ﬁrst phase of thescheme appeared quite robust.Despite Germany’s opposition to mandatory participation, the consultationmeeting with the country representatives was described by the Commission asrelatively ‘easy’ compared to the meeting with industry and ENGOs.3 Many memberstate representatives were passive, and the meeting was marked by signiﬁcantly lessdisagreement than with the non-state actors. One reason may be that the memberstates would have better opportunities to express their views later in the Council ofMinisters on the basis of a formal ET directive proposal. Or something may havechanged that helped to unify the positions of the member-states. Besides a steadyincrease in knowledge on emissions trading (particularly among those memberstates which had established domestic ET expert groups), the most signiﬁcantchange from the year 2000 to 2001 was external: it came with the US electionsand President George Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol in March 2001. Thisinjected signiﬁcant political energy into the climate policy of the EU and affected thecollective will of its member-states, as discussed later in this chapter.DG Environment presented a new draft ET directive to other Commissionservices shortly after the consultation meetings in September 2001.4 The draft took aclear position on controversial aspects: the scheme should be binding in the pre-2008phase; it should be based on allocation for free; and with common penalties for noncompliance. In addition, it included the possibility for member-states to temporarilyexclude installations from the EU trading scheme. This ‘opt-out’ provision came asa result of pressure from industry, but was removed by Commissioner Wallström in3 Interviews in Brussels, 15 May 2006.4 European Commission (14 September 2001), Proposal for a Directive of the EuropeanParliament and of the Council Establishing a Framework for Greenhouse Gas EmissionsTrading within the European Community and Amending Council Directive 96/61/EC, (draft)version for interservice re-consultation (Brussels).
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the ﬁnal ET directive proposal. The ﬁnal proposal for an ET directive was presentedby the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council in October 2001.5As noted in Chapter 3, the ﬁnal proposal was more decentralized than had beenindicated by the Commission in the 2000 Green Paper. First and most importantly,allocation of allowances should be done at the member-state level and not atCommunity level. This was preferred by a majority of the member-states.6 Second,allocation should be free of charge – also preferred by a majority of the memberstates and most industries. Third, member-states could decide on whether to useindependent veriﬁers of emissions, or do it themselves. Together, this shows that thebasic positions of the member-states were taken into account in the proposal for adirective on emissions trading. This means that a combination of change in positionsand inﬂuence by the member-states on the proposed ET legislation made an imprinteven before the formal decision-making process started.Responses to the ET ProposalDespite draft proposals and consultation meetings, the formal proposal for anET directive came as a surprise to some member-states. In Sweden, for example,decision-makers were both concerned and fascinated by this new instrument.7Concerned, because the implications of the proposal were uncertain; fascinated,because the ET directive proposal represented a new and radical way of dealing withgreenhouse gas emissions.The proposal for an EU directive on emissions trading was adopted by theCommission on 23 October 2001. At the Environmental Council meeting shortlyafter, the Council noted that it was ‘appreciative to the Commission for presentinga proposal for a framework directive for an EU greenhouse gas emissions tradingscheme’.8 The ﬁrst debate on the proposed ET directive took place in the EnvironmentCouncil on 12 December 2001, where the Belgian Presidency submitted thefollowing key questions to structure the discussion:9 (1) should the system bemandatory or voluntary in the initial phase (2005–07)? (2) which allocation methodshould be used and should it be harmonized for all commitment periods? and (3) asto coverage: should the directive initially cover CO2 alone? Could member-statesfreely add other sectors? Should emissions from the electricity generation sector be
5 European Commission (23 October 2001), COM(2001)581, Proposal for a Directiveof the European Parliament and of the Council Establishing a Framework for GreenhouseGas Emissions Trading within the European Community and Amending Council Directive96/61/EC (Brussels).6 A smaller group of member-states led by France and Belgium preferred a greaterdegree of harmonization (Vis 2006b, 188).7 Interview with Ulf Sviden, 1 March 2006.8 Council (29 October 2001), 12994/01, 2378th Council Meeting Environment. Presse372, 2001. Luxemburg, 7.9 Council (6 December 2001), 15028/01, Report from Permanent RepresentativesCommittee to Council. Questions prepared for policy debate on the EU ETS in Council(Environment) of 12 December 2001. Brussels.
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credited to the consumer or the producer? These questions originated from the pointsof disagreement at the September 2001 consultation meeting.Not surprisingly, the legal nature of the scheme triggered most disagreement.A majority of the member-states favoured a mandatory system. These countriesargued that a mandatory scheme would ensure participation by affected industriesand be least likely to distort competition.10 At this stage, the opponents formed ablocking minority, according to the Belgian environment minister who chaired themeeting.11 The opposition was led by Germany and the UK. For the UK, this issuewas important, since its own domestic ET scheme was planned to be voluntary until2007. In the case of Germany, the main source of opposition came from industry,where it was feared that the EU ET scheme could lead to higher abatement costs thanthe German voluntary climate agreements. It was already clear that that Germanyand the UK would become two of the most important participants in the scheme– in fact, they came to represent 34.0 per cent of the total amount of allowancesdistributed by all the 25 member-states for the ﬁrst trading period, 2005 to 2007 (seeTable 3.2).The proposal for an ET directive was based on Article 175(1) and the co-decisionprocedure set out in Article 251 of the European Community Treaty. This legal basisprovides for qualiﬁed majority voting in the Council and allows member-states to beoutvoted (and the European Parliament to veto the proposal). The legal base chosenwas the ﬁrst line of defence by those most in opposition to the Commission proposal.They preferred Article 175(2), which can be used if measures are ﬁscal or signiﬁcantlyaffect member-state’s choice of energy sources. If Article 175(2) had been chosen,the proposed ET directive would need to be adopted unanimously, a factor whichled the energy/carbon tax to fail. Unanimity would have increased the inﬂuence ofeach member-state on the system, but reduced the likelihood that all would agreeon the same system. In essence, unanimity would increase the risk of deadlock.At the Environment Council meeting in March 2002, the ministers adopted a legalinstrument obliging the member-states to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The legislationwas proposed on the basis of qualiﬁed majority, even though some states arguedthat the law concerned energy policy, which requires unanimity. The Commissionworried that changing the legal base could provide a precedent for similar changesin relation to the ET Directive.12 Shortly after, however, it was settled that Article175(1) would be the legal base because the proposal did not, according to EJC caselaw, satisfy the conditions for 175 (2) (Meadows 2006, 65).Unanimity would have provided Germany and the UK with veto power overthe proposed ET directive. This would most likely have resulted in a voluntary ETscheme or no EU ETS at all – as in the case of the EU carbon/energy tax. If alegislative proposal is signiﬁcantly weakened by its opponents there is a risk that10 Council (12 December 2001), 15060/01, 2399th Council Meeting Environment.Presse-459, 2001. Brussels.11 ENDS Daily (13 December 2001), ‘EU States Divided Over Climate EmissionTrading’, Issue 1123.12 ENDS Daily (4 March 2002), ‘EU Gives Green Light to Kyoto Ratiﬁcation’, Issue1170.
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initial supporters may turn into opposition. However, as noted in Chapter 2, in theCouncil there is a norm of consensus-seeking and unanimity, despite the possibility ofqualiﬁed majority is allowed for. This norm was particularly strong in the case of theET Directive, as this was a totally new policy instrument with potentially signiﬁcanteconomic implications for energy producers and energy-intensive industry. It wastherefore important to get the directive adopted by unanimity.In practice, the ET Directive would not work well without the support of Germanyas the largest emitter within the European Union. Although the ﬁnal number ofinstallations to be covered by each country in the system was not known at this stage,it was, as noted, already clear that German industry would represent a signiﬁcantshare of the EU emissions trading market. UK support was also substantially andpolitically important. Besides representing a signiﬁcant amount of the relevantemissions within the EU ETS, the UK had supported the idea of emissions trading allthe way. Political weight and control over a signiﬁcant share of the sources coveredby the ET system provided these countries with more power in the decision-makingprocess than the qualiﬁed majority procedure would suggest.The other elements of the debate in the Council were less divisive.13 A vastmajority of the member-states held that allocation of allowances should be free ofcharge so as to stimulate participation, and that the method of allocation should beharmonized and based on harmonized criteria to prevent distortion of competition.With regard to coverage, there was broad support for starting with CO2 and thesectors proposed by the Commission. However, a few wanted to include additionalsectors on a voluntary basis, while others stressed that criteria for expansion shouldbe harmonized at Community level. Finally, a large majority preferred that thecosts should be borne by the electricity producers, in line with the ‘polluter pays’principle. The President concluded by noting that: ‘ ... positions were not ﬁrmlyﬁxed, since consultations were still under way in some member-states, which hadtherefore expressed preliminary views. ... many states were keeping an open mindand that positions could therefore change … ’.14Germany The discussion intensiﬁed and became polarized in Germany afterthe ET directive proposal in October 2001. Mandatory participation was clearlynot acceptable for most industries and governmental ministries and agencies. Thestrongest opponents included powerful industrial associations like the Federation ofGerman Industries (BDI – Bundesverband Deutscher Industrie) and the ChemicalIndustry Association (VCI). These associations and major companies lobbiedintensively against the ET directive proposal: they hired consultants to denouncethe proposal, they sent letters to Chancellor Schröder requesting him to reject it,and the VCI placed full-page announcements in German newsmagazines stating thatemissions trading would stiﬂe investments and economic growth in Germany. Andindeed, in response the Chancellor publicly voiced opposition to the ET directiveproposal (Butzengeiger et al. 2003; Michaelowa et al. 2005).13 Council (12 December 2001), 15060/01, 2399th Council Meeting Environment.Presse-459, 2001. Brussels.14 Ibid., 14.
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Support for the proposal was forthcoming from only a few big companies,including subsidiaries of BP, Shell and to some extent the Hamburg ElectricityUtility (HEW). According to Michaelowa et al. (ibid., 112), emission trading gainedsurprisingly little public support. On the other hand, an independent study showedthat the big industrial federations were not necessarily as representative as theyclaimed to be. A survey of a sample of German energy intensive industry showed,among other things, that: (1) the level of knowledge on emission trading was verylimited; (2) most companies did not anticipate that emissions trading would representa signiﬁcant cost-burden on their business (Santarius and Ott 2002).In light of the opposition from German industry and the support from a majorityof the EU member-states, the German Ministry of the Environment (BMU), whichsupported the ET directive proposal, and the Ministry of Economics and Labour(BMWA), which opposed it, agreed on a common negotiation strategy (Watanabe2005). This strategy was based on Germany’s ofﬁcial position as demonstrated inautumn 2001; it aimed at inﬂuencing the design of the scheme in a way that wouldallow Germany to continue with the voluntary approach – not to oppose the proposalin itself. The main elements of the strategy were voluntary participation and opt-out(Watanabe and Mez 2004). A voluntary scheme would allow countries, sectors orinstallations to decide whether to participate in the EU ETS or not. Opt-out allowsfor exclusion from a mandatory scheme by fulﬁlling certain conditions. This strategywas also supported by German MEPs at the ﬁrst reading of the European Parliamentin October 2002, showing that German industry had successfully lobbied the MEPs.As noted in Chapter 3, however, the ﬁnal EU ET Directive did not conform withGermany’s preferences. The scheme ﬁnally adopted was mandatory and with verylimited opt-out.The mismatch between Germany’s negotiating position and the ﬁnal outcomeindicates that Germany had to give in. Despite the country’s political and substantialnegotiating power, the intense rivalry within Germany weakened its negotiatingposition and inﬂuence in the Council. With the qualiﬁed majority decision rulesettled early in the negotiations and pressure from a majority of the member-states,Germany faced an uphill battle. On the other hand, it might be that Germany changedits position as a result of the federal elections held shortly before the Council agreedon a common position in December 2002.The coalition between the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Partyhad been in power since 1998. Before the federal elections of 22 September 2002,Environment Minister Trittin, with some Greens, and parts of the SPD supportedthe proposed ET directive, while the leader of the coalition government, ChancellorSchröder, opposed it. The conservative opposition, led by Edmund Stoiber (theChristian Democratic Union, CDU, the Christian Social Union, CSU, and the FreeDemocratic Party), apparently opposed the proposed directive (Watanabe 2005). Theconservatives were widely expected to win the election due to economic recessionand increase in unemployment.Disastrous ﬂooding of the Elbe and Danube rivers in August placed environmentalissues at the top of the election agenda and led to a boost in the polls for the SPD-
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Green coalition government.15 The extreme weather events – causing thousands ofhuman injuries and signiﬁcant economic damage – were also picked up by the EUEnvironment Council and linked to climate science predictions that such eventswould become more frequent and intense.16 This situation was exploited by the SPD,which accused Stoiber of failing to state his position on climate change and otherenvironmental issues, and failing to nominate an environmental minister if the CDU/CSU coalition should win.17 With the help of environmental issues, a second termwas secured for the coalition government. The Greens entered the coalition talks ina stronger position than in 1998. The party polled 8.6 per cent of the vote (55 seatsin parliament), up from 6.7 per cent (and 47 seats) in 1998.18 This would most likelystrengthen environmental policies in the new coalition government.The coalition agreement was published on 16 October 2002. Here, the SPD-Greencoalition accepted the proposed ET directive subject to certain conditions, including:measures taken since 1990 to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in Germany mustbe taken into account; allocation of permits must be free of charge; use must be madeof ﬂexible instruments under the Kyoto Protocol; and most importantly: the schememust be run in conjunction with the voluntary agreements, for example in the case ofmandatory trading pools.19 According to Vis (2006b, 190), the coalition agreementsealed the situation whether auctioning was going to be a choice for the memberstates initially. The purpose of mandatory pooling was to allow the governmentto decide on participation in the pool with the aim of maintaining the voluntaryclimate agreements. This means that Germany had abandoned its opposition to amandatory scheme, but argued for mandatory pooling which would make the ETDirective compatible with the voluntary climate agreements. Even though Germanyaccepted EU emissions trading in the coalition agreement, it shows that Germanyhad not changed its position before the adoption of the common position among themember-states in the Council: compatibility between an EU ETS and the Germanvoluntary climate agreement.Discussions in the Council had to be postponed due to negotiations with Germany,which tried to inﬂuence the proposed EU directive right up until the commonposition was adopted in December 2002 (Lefevere 2005, 101). This is reﬂected inthe ambiguity of the conclusions at the Environment Council meeting in October2002: ‘The Council welcomes its political agreement reached today on the Directive… establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within theCommunity and … emphasizes the will of all Member-states to reach a political
15 ENDS Daily (30 August 2002), ‘Stoiber Strives to Recover the Green Initiative’, Issue1276.16 Council (17 October 2002), 12976/02, 2457th Council Meeting Environment. Presse320, 2002. Luxemburg.17 ENDS Daily (15 August 2002), ‘Green Issues in German Election Spotlight’, Issue1269.18 ENDS Daily (23 September 2002), ‘Germany’s Greens Stroll Back into Power’, Issue1292.19 ENDS Daily (27 November 2002), ‘Germany Digs in over EU Emission TradingPlans’, Issue 1338; Watanabe 2005.
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agreement as soon as possible and at the latest at the December Council’.20 As late asin November, Federal Minister of Economics Wolfgang Clement stated: ‘emissionstrading as proposed by the EU needs a critical look in the light of the exemplary wayindustry and energy ﬁrms have approached emissions cuts obligations for 2012 …German industry’s voluntary agreements must be taken into account’.21Despite Germany’s insistence on continuing with the voluntary agreements inone way or another, it was able to inﬂu