SPAIN will buy fewer excess carbon dioxide emissions quotas from Slovakia than originally planned. Environment Minister Peter Žiga has announced that instead of the planned 27 million tonnes of greenhouse-emission quotas, Slovakia will sell to Spain only 7 million tonnes. The Slovak cabinet approved the draft agreement on August 21, the TASR newswire reported.
The minister revealed that he did not know the exact reasons for Spain’s decision to buy fewer quotas. However, he is still satisfied with the conditions, and the state will try to sell the remaining quotas, the SITA newswire wrote.
The price Spain will pay Slovakia for the quotas remains unknown as the cabinet will make the contract public only two months after the document is signed. Spain has asked for this delay. In Slovakia, such a contract must be made public to become effective, but the state has three months to do so. The Sme daily estimates the price at around €0.2 per tonne. The state should thus get about €1.4 million. It plans to use the money to finance thermal insulation for buildings.
The negotiations with Spain started last year.
This will be the first time Slovakia will have sold emissions quotas since the infamous emissions quotas scandal in 2008, during Robert Fico’s first government (2006-10) when the Environment Ministry sold quotas at below market value to Interblue Group, a company that was at the time based out of an unattended lock-up garage in the United States.
Interblue group’s alleged successor, Interblue Group Europe, is interested in acquiring 20 million tonnes of the excess quotas, but Minister Žiga does not consider the company to be reliable partner.
