ABSTRACT
In the first half of 2013 the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) became once more an issue of European higher politics. In April, the European Parliament stopped a proposal by the EU Commission with a vote of 334 to 315 to postpone the auctioning of 900 million emissions permits in an effort to halt the dwindling prices of EU ETS allowances – a plan known as backloading. In a second attempt on 3 July, the parliament eventually accepted the Commission’s proposal with a vote of 344 to 311 in favour. In both instances, many of the conservative and libertarian MEPs voted against the proposal, arguing that ‘[t]he EU ETS was established as a market-based mechanism and must continue to operate according to market principles. We are therefore concerned about the impact of Commission intervention to adapt the auction timetable in order to manipulate the carbon price’ (A spokesman for conservative MEPs quoted in Harvey and Vaughan 2013).
