Babiš says EU's CO2 quotas are destroying Czech industry

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said on the opening day of an international industrial fair in Brno that the EU's CO2 emissions trading system is inflicting colossal damage on Europe, costing Czech industry tens of billions of crowns every year. He made the remarks shortly before leaving the event for a meeting of European Union leaders.

What's wrong with the emissions quotas

"Let's talk about what's happening in Europe. Europe has a huge problem — the ETS 1 emissions quotas are destroying us," Babiš told fair participants.

An emissions quota is a permit to release one tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, created as an EU tool to fight climate change. Companies are required to buy these quotas, and the more emissions they produce, the more they pay — a mechanism meant to push them toward cleaner technologies.

The ETS 1 system covers energy, heavy industry and aviation. Its second part, ETS 2, is due to extend to road transport and building heating from 2028, after a one-year delay. The European Commission has already proposed adjusting ETS 1 under pressure from Czechia, Italy and Poland. According to Reuters, the ETS system is the EU's main tool for fighting climate change, but it is not the main driver of the current rise in energy prices.

Czech industry is losing billions

"Czech industry is losing 50 billion crowns a year to this nonsense and speculation. And we want it stopped," the prime minister stressed. He said the losses have already reached 159 billion crowns in total.

Fuel, housing and the ETS 2 delay

Babiš named the ETS 2 quotas as the second problem. "I want it postponed. It will hit fuel prices and housing prices directly," he said. According to him, the capacity of European oil refineries has already fallen by 40 percent.

As an example, the prime minister cited the situation at petrol stations in France: "Ten percent of stations there have no diesel. And 20 percent of petrol stations have no petrol. As a government, we're doing everything we can to secure this resource, because it's far from certain it will be available here if Europe doesn't come to its senses and change course," he said.

The US example and "green madness"

Babiš recalled that US President Donald Trump scrapped emissions restrictions in the country in September, which he said gave American industry $300 billion. "And what are we giving European industry? We need to start extracting gas and oil again," the Czech prime minister said, referring to "green madness." "We don't want to go back to living in caves," he added.

The Brno fair runs from Tuesday to Friday. It brings together 1,379 exhibitors from 39 countries, with an accompanying programme of around a hundred events.

Read also: Brno: what to see and where to go

Source: novinky.cz