EU appeals court ruling on Polish, Estonian emissions

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission announced Thursday it would appeal against court decisions which blocked EU attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions from Poland and Estonia.

"The commission is going to appeal... on several grounds," the EU executive arm's energy spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich told reporters in Brussels.

Most importantly Brussels argues that the European court of first instance, in its September ruling, "interpreted too narrowly" the commission's powers as regards national allocations of emissions allowances.

Poland, Estonia and other eastern EU nations rely on heavily polluting solid fuels for much of their energy needs

Six other EU countries -- Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania -- are pursuing a similar appeal to Poland's.

The Luxembourg-based court has ruled that the commission overstepped its authority by slashing the National Allocation Plans (NAPS) of Poland and Estonia, by more than a quarter and almost half respectively.

The plans are a major part of EU policy for fighting global warming. Under them, governments fixed the total number of allowances they would allocate to industry for the 2008-2012 period, part of efforts to meet emission targets.

These pollution permits are granted to around 10,000 installations in the 27-nation bloc's energy and industrial sectors which combined account for about half the EU's emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.

The commission then assesses the plans to see whether they are compatible with EU guidelines.

The court ruled, that in this case, the commission had overstepped its authority by rejecting the plans based only on doubts it had about how the countries collected their data.

The commission spokeswoman argued that the court had not taken sufficient account of the "fundamental purpose" of the emissions trading scheme, ETS to reduce overall EU emissions which requires "equal treatment of member states."

The dispute is an embarrassment to the EU as it prepares for international climate talks in Copenhagen next week, where it will bang the drum for more ambitious emission cuts in order to restrict global warming to two degrees centigrade.