CEMBUREAU's Opinion

November 2011 - Member States had to submit their NIMS for EU-ETS 3 by 30 September 2011. To this day, however, only 7 Member States (Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland and Romania) have notified their respective NIMs.

October 2011 - The European Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Energy Efficiency (EED) is currently going through 1st reading in the European Parliament and the Council. These last two institutions seem to be at odds on the proposal: the Parliament wants to strengthen the proposal whereas the Council seems to believe that it is too ambitious and tries to water it down.

Shifting the tax burden from labour to the use of resources may, at first glance, look like an interesting proposition. In the EU context, however, this is just a smoke screen for yet another tax increase.

The priorities of the new CEMBUREAU President, Ignacio Madridejos, are clearly defined. There are based on two key lines.

June 2011 - The revised Waste Framework Directive (WFD) has opened the possibility to lift, through comitology, the waste status in respect of certain waste streams. This proposition is attractive to Member States as it will reduce the total volume of waste and facilitate progress towards national waste reduction targets. It may also stimulate resource efficiency by creating a market for new ex-waste products

May 2011 - A sense of urgency prevails in the European Commission and many Member States as the full set of Guidance Documents on Allocation Rules are not yet completed and the deadline for Member States to propose their plans for free allocation to the Commission by end September 2011 is approaching fast.

April 2011 - On 13 April 2011, The European Commission has issued, as expected, its proposal for a smarter approach to energy taxation. The idea is to amend the Directive on the taxation of energy products and electricity in order to impose a carbon tax.

March 2011 - Several serious incidents have marred the operation of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and led, in January, the European Commission to suspend trading. Trading under the EU ETS must be made more secure and CEMBUREAU is making recommendations in that respect.

February 2011 - European industry is open to participate in developing visions towards 2050, an aspirational exercise - rather than setting strict targets - which industry recognises as being both challenging and inspiring.

February 2011 - Most industries operate with fixed prices for their input materials, for periods of at least 3–6 months ahead, with prices set either by contracts or by the hedging of future prices. However, the situation is different in terms of petcoke purchasing by the European cement industry.