Slovak Environment Minister Jozef Medveď sent a letter to the manager of Interblue Group (Europe), Jana Lutken, on February 2 in which he reminded her of the firm’s failure to keep to an agreement made in Zurich, Switzerland, on January 20 to provide evidence of the company’s business rights to Slovakia’s emission quotas that the country sold to Interblue Group, a former US-based company, ministry spokesperson Jana Kaplanová told the TASR newswire on February 3.
The US-based Interblue Group, which bought 15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from Slovakia in 2008, has not submitted relevant documents proving that the transfer of the company's business rights to Swiss company Interblue Group Europe was legal. The documents were not provided at the meeting in Zurich and the company was asked to deliver them by January 31.
Kaplanová said that the ministry still expects the company to pay €15 million to Slovakia in line with the contract, which states that this sum should be paid if the original funds were used on so-called green projects. Medveď declared on January 12 that Slovakia will insist that Interblue Group's legal successor should pay the additional €15 million.
The situation goes back to 2008 when Slovakia sold 15 million tonnes of emission quotas to the Interblue Group for €75 million at a rate of €5.05 per tonne. The deal has been harshly criticised by the opposition and has received huge media attention. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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