Slovakia does not consider the concessions in the area of ETS 2 emission permits to be sufficient. This was stated on Tuesday in Brussels by Slovak Minister of the Environment Tomáš Taraba (SNS nominee) after the end of the negotiations of the EU Council for the Environment, informs TASR.
The EU emission allowance system, which from 2027 should also be extended to ETS heating of buildings and road transport (ETS 2), was the most important component of the negotiations at the Council of Ministers, Taraba said. He recalled that although the European Commission (EC) accepted and indicated a time delay in the validity of ETS 2, Slovakia does not consider these concessions to be sufficient.
“We do not believe that the declared effort to release larger volumes of emission allowances to the market will ensure some stabilization of prices in the future. Our position, as well as that of Hungary and the Czech Republic and other countries, is that we have declared our intention to withdraw from ETS 2.” Taraba said. He added that other countries, including Poland, claim that the mechanism proposed by the EC is questionable as to whether it will sufficiently ensure price stabilization. He also emphasized that the environmental benefit of ETS 2 is “minimal”.
“We consider it an extremely anti-social element, which only makes it more expensive for people to exist and live. It’s also going to put price pressure on goods because basically everything that’s going to be transported by road is going to be exposed to some kind of price shock that nobody can predict today,” he described the situation. He expressed the view that claims such as The EU found a model to cap prices after the introduction of ETS 2, they are not based on the truth.
In the event of a vote at the Council of the EU, Taraba was supposed to represent the new Czech Minister of the Environment, Petr Macinka. In the end, the vote did not take place, but Taraba stated that after the formation of the new Czech government, both the Czech Republic and Slovakia represent a “strong tandem” in the Council of the EU, because both countries are connected, among other things, by the possible vulnerability of their industry. He added that there was a bilateral meeting between the Czech and Slovak delegations in front of the Council of Ministers.
In this context, Taraba recalled that he is among the “extreme skeptics” of the Green Deal and believes that the new Czech government is sending the same signal. “Now we are the closest, because the Green Deal is liquidating European industry, and that should interest us in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, because we are the most industrialized countries per capita,” he explained.
Taraba added that he also had a meeting in the European Commission on Tuesday, where dealt with the resumption of aluminum production in central Slovakia, the cleanest aluminum smelter in Europe, which produced almost a fifth of European aluminum and had to be closed due to high energy prices. “Today we are talking about the renewal of the arms industry in Europe. What do we want to do with it, when we have driven out all the industry? Factories are sounding the alarm and I see nothing wrong with Slovakia and the Czech Republic intensively communicating in this direction,” he said.
