Italy calls for suspension of European_CO2 market because it “condemns” EU industry

Urso defended that this mechanism has “a double perverse effect” that “must be blocked quickly”.

The Italian Minister of Enterprise, Adolfo Urso, has advocated “suspending” the EU’s carbon trading system that puts a price on CO2 emissions by the industry, considering that it “condemns” the bloc’s companies against their competitors. In his opinion, the emissions trading system (ETS) “as formulated today is a tax on European energy companies, which risk no longer being competitive” on a global scale, so “it is necessary to suspend it” pending a reform that must be “global, organised and effective”.

Urso defended that this mechanism has “a double perverse effect” that “must be blocked quickly”, because “it favours financial speculation” and at the same time promotes the relocation of industrial plants outside the bloc. “We have to suspend what we all know does not work, it condemns European companies to not being competitive with companies from other countries,” he warned before participating in the meeting of the bloc’s industry ministers. The ETS is the bloc’s main instrument for gradually reducing its CO2 emissions, but in recent days some member states of the bloc have questioned it.

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