THE REDUCED CO2 emission limits for Slovakia set by the EU are unacceptable for the country’s chemical companies, said Roman Karlubík, the president of the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industry Association.
Karlubík said that the reduction of Slovakia's quotas could cause hundreds of millions of crowns in losses to Slovak producers. Insufficient quotas would force companies to purchase additional ones, hurting their profits, according to Karlubík.
The European Commission has set the annual limit for Slovakia at 30.9 million tons of CO2, compares to the 41.3 million tons of emissions the country requested annually for the 2008-2012 period.
The drop will especially affect large companies and could lead to job cuts and lower output, Karlubík said.
He added that the companies concerned hope that the Slovak government will use diplomatic channels to force a reassessment of the limits and to restore the quotas to their requested level.
The EC has called on Slovakia to adapt its emission levels in the corporate sector, especially among steel makers, to bring them within the limits set in Slovakia's EU Accession Treaty.
