In the end, only one amendment matters: number 146. In a departure from normal Parliamentary procedure, ALL the changes to the new directive, both by Council and by Parliament, are bundled into one single compromise amendment. The same applies to the other elements of the package, but unless requested I shall not post here. While… » read more

Posted by markjohnston

Joint press statement by WWF, Greenpeace, CAN, Friends of the Earth and Oxfam on the outcome of the European Council on Friday.

Posted by markjohnston

Negotiations on all remain elements of the climate-energy package were completed on Saturday during a series of trialog meetings between representatives of Parliament and Council. For details, see EP press notice here. Each of these informal agreements will be formally signed-off by Parliament next Wednesday and by Council in due course.

Posted by markjohnston

These politcal agreements reach yesterday in Council are now being transposed into the legal texts for the next stages, particularly Parliament plenary next week.

Posted by markjohnston

This Martin Rowson cartoon, about Ireland and the Lison Treaty, also reminds me of ETS agreement reached in Council yesterday, particularly German’s plan to give auction revenue back to utilities (up to 15% investment aid) to build new coal-fired power stations without CCS. (Ref Article 10(3a)(new), printed in Annex 5 of the ‘final elements’ paper.)… » read more

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Today’s EU summit agreed to set aside upto 300 million ETS allowances to support the demonstration on CCS and innovative renewables technlogies, according to Reuters. The amound was increased from 150M then 200M over the course of the meeting. Final confirmation will be available when the Presidency Conclusions are posted on-line later today. Formal agreement… » read more

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[Linked now fixed.] Here is the provisional final text of the Proposal. It was assembled by the Council secretariate this week and is due to be signed off (‘closed’) by the last informal trilogue meeting beginning midday tomorrow (Saturday). After that, Parliament will adopt a legisaltive resolution in Plenary next week (debate Tuesday 15h-19h; voting… » read more

Posted by markjohnston

Trialogue negotiations between Parliament, Council and the Commission broke up this evening (9.20pm) without a final agreement on the terms of the CO2 Storage directive. Negotiations will reconvene on Friday morning at 9.30am, after the next ETS trialogue meeting on Thursday evening. The ETS session will include further talks on on the proposed demonstrations aid… » read more

Posted by markjohnston