EU and climate change
Commission takes Member States to Court over failures to comply with EU climate policy laws
The Commission is taking Luxembourg to the European Court of Justice for failing to communicate the policies and measures it is implementing to address climate change and its projections of future greenhouse gas emissions; information which is necessary for the Commission to assess and report towards the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on EU compliance under the Convetion and its Kyoto Protocol.
Seven Member States have not provided a complete set of important technical information that is needed for establishing their permitted emission level in tonnes their 'assigned amount' - under the Kyoto Protocol. As such, France, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania and Poland will receive first warning letters. Germany and Luxembourg already received first warning letters in April 2006 and will now receive final warning letters.
The Commission is also sending first warning letters to 8 Member States for failing to submit national allocation plans (NAPs) for the second trading period of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The deadline for doing so was 30 June 2006. The Member States concerned are Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. These Member States are known to be developing their NAPs but they have yet to send them to the Commission.
In total 15 Member States (out of 25) are concerned by those infringement proceedings which shows that a majority of the EU States are failing to deliver on their climate policy obligations !
