Backloading bad for jobs and energy bills

With higher energy bills, industry keeps abandoning Europe. This trend must be reversed, says Eija-Riitta Korhola, EPP Group Shadow Rapporteur on the 'Timing of auctions of greenhouse gas allowances':  “Todays vote to accept the Commission's backloading proposal by pulling 900 million allowances out of the carbon market only speeds up the increase of energy prices."

“The EPP Group consistently defends European jobs and clean European production. Therefore we could not accept the Commission’s proposal today,” says Korhola. “Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme needs to be revised instead of artificially pumping up the carbon prices.”

According to Eurostat figures, electricity prices have increased by almost 14% for private households between 2010 and 2012, and by more than 12% for industry in the EU27. And what is worse, energy prices in the EU are set to increase even more.

“The EPP Group managed to put forward amendments which guarantee that backloading happens only once, and after a prior impact assessment ruling out the risk of the carbon leakage industry moving outside the EU due to high energy prices.”

“As our ultimate goal is to reduce global carbon emissions, the result of the industry leaking out from Europe is just the opposite. We are now well on our way to reaching the objective to reduce CO2 emissions by 21% by 2020, but can we be sure that we have reduced the global burden with the equal amount?” concluded Korhola.