Wie erklärt sich Angela Merkels Umschwung in Sachen EU-Klimapaket? Wie es scheint wächst der Druck auf Deutschland, Milliardenbeträge freizustellen, um eine Zusage der osteuropäischen Gegner des EU-Klimapakets zu erkaufen. So jedenfalls berichtet es die Financial Times heute morgen: The UK and Germany are being pressed to agree a bigger subsidy to eastern European countries as France makes a last-minute effort to rescue an ambitious climate agreement. Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, will raise the matter with Gordon Brown in talks today in London following discussions with Angela Merkel, German chancellor, on Sunday.
Mr Sarkozy is seeking their agreement to bolster the climate package’s so-called “solidarity fund” ahead of a two-day summit of European heads of state that begins on Thursday. The fund was proposed by the European Commission to redistribute to poorer EU member states a 10 per cent share of the auction revenues from an expanded EU emissions trading scheme – to help them refit outdated power plants and invest in cleaner technology.
The fund emerged as a central point during Mr Sarkozy’s meeting in Gdansk on Saturday with Donald Tusk, Polish prime minister, and other eastern European leaders who have resisted the climate package.
Mr Tusk cited “progress” in those talks but Polish officials warned that they would scupper a deal if Germany and the UK, in particular, did not drop their opposition to increasing the fund. “If the solidarity money is not there . . . there will be no agreement at the council next week,” one said.
The fund has come under further pressure as Germany has led a campaign to grant more free pollution allowances to steel, cement and other heavy industries instead of requiring them to buy them at auction.
Industry lobbyists have argued they should receive allowances for free so they are not put at a disadvantage to foreign competitors. Yet Poland and other eastern European countries worry that such a move would reduce auction revenues and deplete the solidarity fund. Mr Sarkozy told a news conference in Gdansk that the eastern European member states wanted the solidarity mechanism to become a “little more ambitious” and that he was trying to establish ways of bringing that about.
Germany argues it is already helping out eastern European countries by shouldering a heavy burden by boosting the share of energy it generates from renewable sources. “Germany does not want to question the principle of solidarity but to calculate it in a different way,” he said.
Mr Sarkozy has also sought to assuage Poland’s concern that the auctioning system – to begin in 2013 – would push up electricity prices for consumers.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca0bfaaa-c4a9-11dd-8124-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
