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Climate Action
News article3 December 2010Directorate-General for Climate Action

Jos Delbeke on the recent incident of unauthorised access to EU ETS registry accounts in Romania

Jos Delbeke, Director-General for Climate Action, has made the following statement today: "The European Commission regrets the recent incident of unauthorised access to EU ETS registry accounts in Romania. However, the Commission has no indication...

Jos Delbeke, Director-General for Climate Action, has made the following statement today: "The European Commission regrets the recent incident of unauthorised access to EU ETS registry accounts in Romania. However, the Commission has no indication that this unauthorised access is due to insufficient security requirements in the EU ETS registry system.

Following a similar incident earlier this year in Germany the Commission and Member States have taken immediate measures by means of adopting enhanced security requirements through an amendment of the regulation governing the EU ETS registry system. These measures have already been implemented and some Member States are pro-actively applying additional measures.

Enhanced security standards on the side of public authorities and national registries can not substitute appropriate security standards on the side of companies participating in the EU ETS. I therefore appeal to companies to review and assure that they are also having adequate internal safeguards in place.

Some market participants have contacted the Commission earlier this week and requested guidance on what to do with allowances carrying serial numbers as published by the Romanian operator.

The recovery of any allowances which are claimed to have been transferred fraudulently is a matter for national law and national law enforcement authorities. The Commission has no powers to block any such allowances in a registry account as such allowances continue to represent legally valid compliance instruments.

Due to the confidentiality provisions in the regulation governing the EU ETS registry system, the Commission or Member States have furthermore no authorisation to provide individual companies (or legal representatives thereof) with information about specific allowances in the registry system.

The above restrictions do of course not extend to national law enforcement authorities. The Commission is fully cooperating with such bodies to facilitate their work allowing damaged parties to recover losses incurred from unauthorised access to registry accounts".

Jos Delbeke, Director-General, DG Climate Action

Details

Publication date
3 December 2010
Author
Directorate-General for Climate Action