Already, the review has become intensely political. As soon as U.S. and Israeli bombs fell on Iran and oil and gas prices skyrocketed, a gang of 10 EU member countries — led by Poland, Italy, Czechia and Austria — released a letter characterizing the ETS as a plague on household energy bills, a business killer and a constrictive mandate for European decarbonization.
Since then, other countries have piled in. On the moderate side, France, Germany, Spain and others are now also arguing the ETS requires reform so the private sector can catch its financial breath amid market uncertainty. But Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands — among the biggest defenders of the ETS — kept their signatures off a pair of critical papers to the attention of the Commission in May.
Heavily polluting industries like steel, cement, aluminum and chemicals — all subject to the ETS — have publicly committed to decarbonizing. But they, too, have lobbied against parts of the ETS and many make no secret of their dislike of it in the backrooms of Brussels.
Ireland stands as one of the relative neutrals in the ETS debate. Darragh O’Brien, Ireland’s minister of energy and transport, told POLITICO that’s because his country is not a heavy industrial nation and less affected by the ETS.
“There’s no baggage coming into this,” O’Brien said about Ireland’s history with the bloc’s carbon pricing framework. “So I think, we will operate as an efficient, honest broker through this. And it’s important for industry, so we need to advance it as far as we can over the course of the six months.”
But the biggest question in the European capital is: What will the Commission actually end up doing to satisfy the naysayers and the ETS-purists, alike?