News from Cembureau: ETS registries: Security first, liquidity second
Several serious incidents have marred the operation of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETSi) and in January led the European Commission to suspend trading. Trading under the EU ETS must be made more secure and CEMBUREAU is making recommendations in that respect. Already in October 2010, some 470 000 allowances (EUAs) were stolen from 9 accounts in Germany. Hackers were at it again in January 2011, on a broader scale. This time 3.6 million EUAs were stolen from the registries in Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy and Romania. In total EUAs worth 5 billion € were lost. Such criminal acts come on top of various VAT carousel frauds committed in relation to the ETS. These repeated incidents have damaged the credibility of the EU trading system. As a result, the European Commission had to suspend trading between 19 and 26 January and is now considering imposing minimum security measures to prevent the re-occurrence of such thefts. On 15 March 2011, a stakeholder meeting was organised by the European Commission for the purpose of collecting views on what to do in addition to the safeguards already put in place by companies involved in trading. As cement companies have been victims of thefts, CEMBUREAU was represented at that meeting and held views largely shared by all industries that fall within the ETS scope (“compliance participants”). Read more at:
