EU, majority of 27 consider the Ets indispensable

Ahead of the European Council on 19 and 20 March, a senior EU official explained that "several leaders" among the 27 member states are for maintaining the Ets mechanism: "We expect the Ets system to be one of the main discussion points in the energy chapter. There are leaders we expect to support tackling this system but at the same time we have the majority of leaders who consider Ets indispensable not only for the transition but because it has been important for European investment strategies'.

"The area where there will probably be most debate is energy, as leaders have already indicated that energy was one of the biggest challenges for EU competitors. The reason is that electricity prices are much higher in Europe than our main competitors in the rest of the world, certainly compared to the US or China. This had to be addressed, and now, with the war in Iran, we see that there are at least three time levels to be addressed,' the senior EU official reported.

"The idea is that there is also a timeframe for the approval of the measures indicated in the Commission's letter. This concerns the medium and the long term. In the short term, the leaders have identified a structural problem with electricity prices in Europe and want this to be analysed to see where it can be corrected. The Commission's letter is an important contribution in this regard. There are several components that influence the price of electricity. There are grids, grid prices and also the ETS,' he explains.

"We are asking for the suspension of the Ets as far as thermoelectricity is concerned, or a solution that leads us to the result that the value of the Ets does not affect the price of energy, practically tripling it". This was said by Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto on the sidelines of a meeting with his European counterparts. "The nature of the Ets is assimilable to a tax and on the Italian bill it weighs a total of over 7 billion and cannot be reduced for a reason of calculation mechanism," he pointed out. 'We ask for a correction of this. Then it can be suspension, it can also be a different kind of assessment,' he added.

"The intention" of the Italia government "was to notify" the intervention on Ets of the bills decree "after the approval by the Parliament, because during" the "parliamentary process there can legitimately be changes, the issue is however such that we have brought it in a political but official way to the European Commission, and therefore on this we already ask for an immediate assessment, regardless of the notification". This was stated by the Minister for the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto, at a press point on the sidelines of the Environment Council in Brussels.