Environment ministers from the 27 EU member states met in Luxembourg yesterday (5 June) to debate the Commission's package of climate and energy proposals.
Discussions focused in particular on how member states, who differ significantly in terms of economic development, will share the 20% CO2 reduction target.
Seven of the EU's newer member states, led by Hungary, are calling for a rethink of how each country's individual CO2 reduction target is calculated, with the baseline year used to calculate the necessary reductions a key point of contention.
The Commission has proposed using 2005 instead of 1990 for technical reasons related to data availability. But the group of seven stresses that, by choosing 2005 as the reference year for the basis of its calculations, the Commission is favouring the richer older members of the EU over the Eastern newcomers.
Instead, they argue that the cuts they achieved since 1990 as a result of post-communist de-industrialisation should be better reflected in their national targets. They point out that, by 2005, Eastern states had already cut their emissions by 7.9%, and argue that the 2005 reference date is unfair (EurActiv 02/06/08).
Ministers also touched on the issue of renewable energy and biofuels promotion, but these issues are scheduled to receive more attention today (6 June) from EU Energy ministers, who are meeting primarily to give their views on controversial Commission plans to further liberalise the EU's energy market (EurActiv 06/06/08).
