EU‑UK carbon market deal close, with UK courting access to ‘Made in Europe’ before Dublin summit
A deal between the EU and UK on carbon emissions trading and carbon tax is imminent as British ministers push for sectoral agreements ahead of next week's EU-UK summit.
UK and EU officials are on the brink of an agreement that would link their carbon emissions markets, a move that would save companies millions of euros in carbon border taxes, as the diplomatic push for deeper EU-UK integration accelerates ahead of a key post-Brexit summit next week.
The deal would enable carbon permits to be traded across the two emissions systems. The UK’s post-Brexit emissions trading scheme was modelled on the EU’s.
The UK’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, which is set to come into force early next year, is also based on the EU’s carbon border levy, a tax on imported industrial goods which are linked to high carbon emissions.
Once the UK and EU emissions trading systems are linked, that would pave the way for them to be exempted from their respective CBAM laws.
On Tuesday (10 November), UK trade minister Jonathan Reynolds and Europe minister Hamish Falconer held talks with EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič to push for a UK inclusion in the EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ initiative, that would allow UK firms to retain access to the EU’s industrial supply chain.
Meetings with vice-president Stéphane Séjourne and defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius were also on the agenda.
Benjamin Fox is our trade and geopolitics editor. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He is based in Nairobi, Kenya, although he often reports from London.
