The European Commission recently introduced a draft of the revised EU ETS Directive which, among other things, proposes that 100 % of ETS revenues should be used for environmental measures. We welcome this idea but we’re also sceptical about how the ETS revenues are used in the Czech Republic. Therefore, we have prepared an analysis mapping the use of ETS revenues in Czech Republic and sent it to the European Commission as an input for the recent public consultation. The main conclusions are presented below.
Czech law states that 50 % of ETS revenues has to be used for environmental measures, which are enumerated in the ETS Directive. For 2021 the Czech government decided to cap this share at CZK 8 bn. (EUR 310 mil.), the rest of the revenues are considered income to the state budget. In case ETS revenues are higher than CZK 16 bn. per year, as predicted for 2021, there is potential for non-compliance with the ETS Directive, which requires at least 50 % of ETS revenues to be earmarked for climate-related projects.
Information about projects supported from ETS revenues is not publicly available, we assume that some of the means flows into the state budget and aren‘t used for environmental measures. Furthermore, ETS revenues dedicated to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, are used for continuous operating support for photovoltaic projects from the 2010s, which does not have any incentivising effect for the energy transformation. This support would have been paid anyway.
Following months of negotiations in the European Parliament, the amendments to the CSRD proposal have been approved by the JURI committee this Tuesday 15th of March.
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) proposal stipulates that EFRAG should be responsible for carrying out a due process to draft, consult and deliver EU sustainability standards for adoption by the European Commission. On 1 March, the EFRAG General Assembly appointed the members of the EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board, which will be responsible for all sustainability reporting positions of EFRAG, including technical advice to the European Commission on draft EU Sustainability Reporting Standards and related amendments.
Dear Members of the European Parliament, In the next couple of weeks, various committees in the European Parliament will vote on their proposals to reform the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). In view of that, the co-signing organisations are calling for broadening the scope of the companies to be covered by the new rules by including all listed SMEs, as well as non-listed SMEs operating in high-risk sectors, subject to proportional rules.
