As early as Monday, 6 July, the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment will vote on proposals to amend the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). MEPs appear to be taking a fairly firm stance – following their amendments, importers will pay more for importing carbon-intensive goods and for a greater volume of products.
Default values for countries in the risk group
To calculate emissions under the CBAM for countries in the risk group, there are plans to introduce default values instead of actual figures. The European Parliament intends to propose such changes.
Quoting Pascal Canfen, a Member of the European Parliament from the French Renew party, Eurometal notes that this will force importers from those countries to prove the accuracy of their declared production emissions.
The list of ‘at-risk’ countries itself will be based on criteria that will only become known once the final text of the document is published. The proposed changes are certain to include China.
These proposals from the European Parliament directly contradict the European Commission’s draft legislation, which, conversely, prioritised actual emissions. It was proposed that default values – which are usually higher – should only be used in the absence of data.
In addition to this stricter change, MEPs also agreed on an expanded list of steel and aluminium products to which the CBAM will apply. They added 249 items to the 180 previously proposed by the European Commission.
No pauses in carbon duty payment
Attempts by the European Commission to push through CBAM relief for imports under extraordinary circumstances are also likely to be blocked by the European Parliament. This is reported by E&E News.
As early as next week, the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment is expected to vote on compromise amendments to the carbon mechanism. One of these is the complete abolition of the controversial Article 27a, which experts have already dubbed the "kill switch."
This concerns the right of the European Commission to temporarily exempt specific foreign industrial goods from the carbon duty. Such a procedure was intended for cases of threatening and unforeseeable circumstances.
The debate on such a legislative safeguard has been ongoing since March of this year. As previously reported by EcoPolitic, it was intended to be used not only in the event of a general crisis in a specific sector, but also in situations where supply chain disruptions or pricing imbalances arise.
Earlier, the European Commission published the verification algorithm for accreditors in countries outside the European Union and the European Economic Area.
