EU court rules on Polish case over free carbon permits

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A European Union court is due to rule in a lawsuit filed by Poland against the European Commission over the method for allocating free carbon- dioxide permits in the world’s biggest emissions market.

Poland sued the European Commission in July 2011, saying the EU's regulatory arm failed to take into account fuel mixes in individual member states when devising the carbon- efficiency benchmarks.

The standards, which are used to determine the number of free permits for emitters after 2012, are "more restrictive" than required to meet the climate- protection targets, the Polish Foreign Ministry said last year.

The decision could affect the design of the €54 billion ($73.3 billion) EU emissions trading system in the current trading period, in which European governments will sell a greater proportion of allowances than in the past eight years. The EU adopted 52 benchmarks to allocate a dwindling supply of free permits in the so-called third phase from 2013 until 2020.