was the Commission expecting that companies would reinvest them in cleaner generation capacity?
The way that we are doing this is via the emissions-trading system. And the objective was to have a scarcity on the market which would lead companies to make investments in lower-emission plants. But as you know, during the first trading period, we had an over-allocation of CO2 emissions allowances and this did not provide the incentive to invest, especially for long-term investments. However, for the second trading period, we are careful to apply the criteria that are prescribed in the legislation and to take into account the country’s growth perspective, carbon intensity, and actual emissions for 2005. Accordingly, we have asked for the National Allocation Plans to be prepared in a way that will take into account the guidelines that we published in December 2005. Most of the submitted plans went above what we expected and so we had to make the relevant adjustments. Not all countries have agreed to your reassessment though, Germany in particular Most of the countries make their own ca
