By Kate Abnett
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Groups representing a majority of lawmakers in the European Parliament have struck a compromise deal on climate change policies that they hope will pass a vote next week and avoid delays to Europe’s green agenda.
The Parliament dealt a blow to European Union climate change policies last week, when it rejected an agreement on the bloc’s carbon market, with lawmakers at odds about how ambitious Europe’s biggest emissions-cutting policy should be.
“We have a deal that I think has a majority, a big majority, in parliament,” said Socialist lawmaker Mohammed Chahim. Parliament will vote on the carbon market reform again on June 22.
Failure to win support could delay deals on the EU’s overall package of more ambitious climate proposals, which negotiators are racing to turn into final laws this year.
The compromise would see emissions covered by the EU carbon market fall 63% by 2030, according to the centre-right European People’s Party, parliament’s biggest lawmaker group, which struck the deal with the Socialists and Renew group legislators.
That is higher than the 61% proposed by the European Commission, which drafts EU laws, and lower than the 67% supported in an early parliament deal.
The details include a phase-out of the free CO2 permits industries receive, starting in 2027, with a total phase-out by the end of 2032.
This issue is what sunk the previous vote, when a 2034 end-date won support in parliament – prompting Socialist and Green lawmakers to reject the entire carbon market agreement, which they said had been watered down too much. A 2032 free CO2 permit phase-out would be earlier than the Commission’s 2035 proposal.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett; Editing by Robert Birsel)
