Poland says it has gathered enough support to stall EU carbon emission controls

POLAND:THE EU'S climate protection ambitions could face a setback after Poland announced yesterday that it had gathered enough support from other countries to stall negotiations.

Greece was the latest to join the Polish initiative, after Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. The group hopes to force further discussion of a climate package that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by one fifth by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

"Poland's environment minister signed an agreement in Greece referring to the climate package," said spokeswoman Joanna Mackowiak. "We have the blocking minority." The Polish announcement ups the stakes in a long-running disagreement between richer western European nations and less well-off eastern states.

They are unhappy about a new CO2 emission permit system planned for 2013 because, they say, their power station operators will be hard-pressed to afford extra emissions permits required when they exceed their allocation, particularly when faced with deep-pocketed energy giants from Germany and France.

EU rules allows legislation to be held up by a group of countries with 91 or more of the 345 total votes in the European Council.

Yesterday, a Brussels source indicated that the blocking minority was only concerned with the auction issue. "It's not the biggest success when you build up a blocking minority," a commission source said. "It's when the minority sticks together to the very end." Even so, the Polish initiative could hobble the climate change deal agreed 18 months ago.

Poland is hugely dependent on fossil fuels, generating over 90 per cent of its electricity from coal. Plans to adopt clean-coal technologies will take years to implement, long after the emissions system is scheduled to take effect.

Warsaw has been alarmed at the pace of talks and by reports that the price of carbon credits will be higher than estimated.

A week ago, five new member states led by Poland signed a joint declaration expressing concern that, should the package be introduced, it would result in a "significant increase" in European dependence on imported gas. The new states are unhappy about becoming even more dependent on gas imports from Russia.