The UN will suspend Bulgaria as of June 30 from trading emission permits under the Kyoto Protocol, and hence in the EU ETS. The reason is that its accounts are intransparent and untrustworthy. See here and here.
This is good news and bad.
The good news is that the problem seems to be incompetence rather than dishonesty. If organized crime had taken over Bulgaria permit accounts, I would expect that they would not be caught out by maternity leave.
The bad news is that the suspension is not immediate. In the EU ETS, permits trade under “seller beware” liability. That is, if an Irish company buys a dodgy permit from Bulgaria, that is Bulgaria’s problem. Bulgarian companies have thus been given six weeks to sell permits, knowing that their government will not be able to verify their accounts.
2 replies on “Bulgarian CO2 permits”
I’m wondering if this will have any Single Market repercussions. Will it be possible for European Govt.s to stop recognising permits issued by another member of the Internal Market. Even if the UN does go ahead and suspend Bulgaria from ETS, I’m not sure EU countries will be in a position to stop recognising Bulgarian permits as valid, without some sort of patch at EU level.
No doubt, some bureaucrats somewhere are examining this possible problem as we speak.
This is of course, meant to take over from banking. Once the middle classes realize it cannot then there will be ructions!
The whole thing is a fraud, so please expect this to recurr often!