However, calculations have already started in Warsaw to determine precisely what amounts are involved. In the draft of the new EU budget for 2028-2034, the Irish Presidency proposed that Poland and other poorer countries using the Modernization Fund for adaptation to climate goals would not have to immediately transfer the entire 30% to the EU budget. its revenues from the ECJ, as the European Commission wants. Instead, the stakes would increase gradually. This is an attempt to alleviate one of the potentially fiercest disputes over the future EU budget.
The dispute concerns billions of euros and whether the Union should gain a new source of its own budget revenues at the expense of the revenues currently remaining in the member states.
The Irish presidency came up with a proposal that would be more financially advantageous for us (than the EC's proposal, which assumes that countries immediately pay 30% of their revenues from the ETS - editor's note), but we are still not where we would like to be in terms of the ETS as our own resource, Ignacy Niemczycki, deputy minister for European affairs, told an RMF FM journalist.
Ireland eases conditions. Poland is talking about a half-measure
As an RMF FM journalist found out, one of the variants considered in Brussels is to increase the rate by 5 percentage points in subsequent stages, until it reaches the full 30 percent. at the end of the seven-year budgetary perspective. In the first years of the new budget, a smaller part of the ETS revenues would go to Brussels, and the full rate would apply only at the end of the budget perspective.
This is a half-measure - an RMF FM journalist in Warsaw heard. Poland wants the revenues from the ECJ not to become a new source of income for the EU budget at all.
Even EUR 2.85 billion in savings in seven years?
According to estimates by the Irish Presidency, changes in the calculation of ETS revenues would reduce revenues to the EU budget by approximately EUR 2 billion per year. Assuming that Poland's annual revenues from the auction of CO₂ emission allowances amount to EUR 3.8 billion, transferring 30 percent this amount to the EU budget would mean that Poland would pay approximately EUR 1.14 billion annually to the EU budget.
However, if the rate increased gradually - by 5 percentage points, i.e. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and then 30%. in the sixth and seventh years, the difference compared to the immediate introduction of the full rate would be approximately EUR 2.85 billion over seven years. This is an average of over EUR 400 million in annual "savings" for Poland.
17 countries warn against unequal burden
The Irish proposal to gradually reach the full 30% rate was tailored "for Poland". Its aim is to reduce the concerns of Warsaw and other countries supporting the protection of cohesion policy and to reach a compromise. These countries have repeatedly emphasized that the new burden cannot be regressive, i.e. more severe for less wealthy countries than for more developed ones. This demand was also included in the list of 17 member states.
New EU revenues are another area of dispute
The decision on new own resources requires unanimity of the Member States and then approval by each of them in accordance with national procedures. Poland - if it does not want a levy from emissions trading revenues - has a powerful tool in its hand.
The ETS is one of the proposed new EU budget levies. The European Commission also proposes revenues from the CBAM carbon border fee, the increase of which is proposed by the Irish Presidency, as well as new fees for large companies, tobacco and e-waste.
