The EU's bigger member states are seeking to wrest control over demonstration carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects worth billions of euros away from the European Commission.
The EU has already decided that it wants 12 CCS demonstration plants up and running by 2015 as part of its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. EU leaders earmarked €1.05 billion for CCS under the EU's economic recovery plan and agreed that the proceeds from selling allowances for 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the emissions trading scheme will be available for CCS and ‘innovative' renewable energy projects – although it is acknowledged more funding will be needed.
But diplomats from the EU's three biggest countries are pressing for a bigger say over how the EU money is spent.
In September, members of the climate change committee, a group of experts from the national administrations, will vote on Commission-proposed rules governing how the EU money is used.
Commission proposal
In an informal paper sent to governments last month to explain its thinking, the Commission proposed that it should be responsible for selecting projects and handing out allowances, while member states should be in charge of implementing the projects.
The three big member states dislike this division of responsibilities. Germany has called for the 300 million tonnes of CO2 allowances to be divided between member states, leaving national governments in charge of choosing and managing projects. The UK does not support the German proposal, but says it shares the same concerns.
Instead, the UK has proposed that the Commission should be in charge of drawing up a shortlist of suitable projects that national governments would then choose from. France says that member states should be responsible for the allowances and how the rules for using them are fixed.
Advocates of CCS fear that ceding too much power to national governments could undermine the value of a European programme to test the new technology.
Chris Davies, a UK Liberal MEP who led the Parliament's negotiations with the Council of Ministers about CCS legislation, has accused larger member states of “trying to grab a share of the pot for their own pet projects without regard to the wider European interest”. In a letter to the Commission president, EU leaders, environment and finance ministers, he said that “to ensure a balanced portfolio, it is essential that the final decisions on project selection should be taken at EU level”.
Innovative renewables
National governments have also raised objections to the Commission's proposals on ‘innovative renewables'. These are defined for the first time in the Commission non-paper and cover 29 technologies, including concentrated solar power, offshore wind and different types of bioenergy. But the UK thinks that not all projects are both commercially ready and likely to have a significant impact on emissions - the criteria for EU funding.
The Netherlands is also “not convinced” that all the technologies listed meet these criteria.
