Five EU states get security clearance to restart emissions trading

Feb 3, 2011, 15:52 GMT

Brussels - Five European Union states have proved that their national schemes for trading greenhouse-gas emissions permits are hacker-proof and can therefore resume trading, the bloc's executive said Thursday.

The EU sees itself as a world leader on fighting climate change, and its emissions trading system (ETS) is the largest.

But in mid-January, hackers managed to log into ETS databases in five EU nations and steal millions of euros' worth of permits, forcing the European Commission to close the system.

Now, 'France, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Britain have given reasonable assurances that the minimum security requirements are in place. Therefore these national registries will resume normal operations on 4 February 2011 at 8am CET (0700 GMT),' the commission announced.

The January 19 decision to close all spot trading of emissions permits was a deep embarrassment to the EU, which is currently trying to convince other world powers to set up their own trading systems.

According to officials at the time, 14 out of 27 EU states had failed to keep their computer registries secure enough and were using obsolete software to protect them.

Hackers took advantage of that weakness in Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece and Poland, stealing 2 million permits with a spot value of 28 million euros (39 million dollars).

However, officials stressed that that represented less than 0.02 per cent of all permits traded within the ETS. Spot trading itself accounts for roughly one-fifth of all business, with the majority of companies more interested in trading futures.