Bulgarian businesses have opened a new front in their fight against the decision by the European Commission (EC) to decrease 2008 - 2013 greenhouse gas emission quotas for Bulgaria, mediapool.bg reported on November 28.

Besides the procedure that had been started a week earlier, businesses have raised the issue with Bulgarian MEPs, Bozjidar Danev, spokesperson of the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) said.

The problem had been entered on the agenda of the European Parliament, Danev said.

According to data from BIA, Bulgarian companies would have to spend 770 million euro per year on extra emission quota, to avoid paying even bigger fines for exceeding theallotted amounts of pollution emissions.

Dimitar Brankov, head of the clean industry centre at BIA said that quota for greenhouse gas emission were sold for 23 to 25 euro per ton, a price which was expected to increase to 30 euro per ton.

Business and Government were seeking support in Strasbourg for the procedure in Brussels, so the case would not have to reach the European Court in Luxembourg, mediapool.bg said.

Time for a political solution was short as the deadline for filing legal action against the EC decision was set at January 4 2008.
Claims against Brussels had already been filed by the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia and other new EU member states, Danev said.

In a meeting on November 22 in Brussels, the EC made it clear that the method used to calculate emission quota would not be changed. If however, Bulgaria would prove technical mistakes had been made in the calculation and effects of decommissioning the two blocks at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, Brussels might change the quota.
Stopping the two nuclear reactors has lead to an additional nine million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, in order to compensate for the lost electricity production with coal centrals, Danev said.

European commissioner for environment Stavros Dimas has said that the EC would respond with a final decision after Bulgaria would send its written explanation, which was expected in the first week of December.

Whatever the decision would be, Bulgaria would have to reconsider its national plan for industrial sectors, to accommodate the reduction in quota. A court procedure, which was expected to take up to two years, would not stop the implementation of the EC decision, Danev said.

According to Danev, Bulgarian businesses already had a plan how this could be possible and were asking Government to leave it up to companies to deal with imposed greenhouse gas emission quota.