Spain to rejoin EU emission trading scheme this week

Feb 14, 2011, 23:38 GMT

Brussels - Spain is to rejoin the European Union carbon emission trading scheme from Wednesday, after proving that its national scheme is hacker-proof, the bloc's executive said on Monday.

Last month the EU's emissions trading system (ETS) was shut down after it was discovered that hackers had managed to log into ETS databases in five EU nations and steal millions of euros' worth of permits.

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.

'Spain has provided reasonable assurances that the minimum security requirements are in place,' the European Commission indicated in a statement.

Only countries with sufficient levels of cybersecurity have been allowed back into the system. Spain is set to become the seventh - after France, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Britain and Portugal.

The commission said it expected several more countries to file for security clearance to rejoin the ETS system in the coming days.

   Officials stressed that the cybertheft 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.