Liese Strikes CORSIA Exemption Clause from EU ETS Parliament Text
The Parliament's lead ETS negotiator removed language he called an inconsistency, tightening the reform text amid parallel votes on market stability reserve mechanics.
Peter Liese, the European Parliament's lead negotiator on EU emissions trading reform, deleted a CORSIA-linked exemption clause he characterised as an inconsistency from Parliament's working text on the ETS overhaul. The move coincides with a dense stretch of EU carbon legislation: Montel reported in June (2026-06-25) that the environment committee planned to vote on September 10 (2026-09-10) on whether to halt automatic cancellation of surplus allowances in the market stability reserve, with both items running through the same autumn committee calendar.7,4
ICE EUA Dec-rolling allowances were at €85.68 per tonne as of Friday (2026-09-18). All four tracked market signals were bearish. Supply clarity from the final reform text, covering international credits, MSR mechanics and aviation scope, is what traders need before taking a firm directional view.6
Liese spoke on Tuesday (2026-09-08) at an industry event reported by Montel, arguing permanent domestic carbon removals should be integrated without any limit into the EU ETS. Parliament's draft report, which Liese is steering as lead negotiator, will form the basis for talks with the Council and Commission once the committee finalises its position.7
The CORSIA issue has been active in Brussels since at least early June. On June 5 (2026-06-05), the International Civil Aviation Organisation's decision to bar Zimbabwe's carbon credits from the aviation offsetting scheme raised concerns about a disconnect between CORSIA's credit approval process and Paris Agreement rules, as reported by Carbon Pulse. The episode sharpened questions about how reliably international offset infrastructure can serve as a backstop for EU aviation emitters.2
The Commission's reform proposal would allow high-integrity international credits to satisfy up to 5% of the EU's 90% net emissions reduction target by 2040 compared with 1990 levels, with that mechanism starting from 2036, according to JD Supra's summary of the proposal. If such credits prove unavailable, the annual linear reduction factor would revert to a 2.7% tightening rate rather than the proposed 1.7%, causing the cap to fall faster and restricting allowance creation.6
Municipal waste incineration adds another moving part. The Commission proposes phasing it into the ETS between 2031 and 2034, starting at 25% of verified emissions in 2031 and reaching full inclusion by 2034 — adding a new demand category to a market whose supply architecture for the same period remains under negotiation.6
Industry's discomfort about layering new offset rules onto unresolved ETS questions was articulated in May (2026-05-21). Sarah Hay, climate policy lead at Norsk Hydro, told Montel that international carbon offsets should remain outside proposals to expand the carbon border adjustment mechanism until the ETS review settles their treatment in the main scheme. "There shouldn't be anything new coming in under CBAM that you don't have under the EU ETS now," Hay said.1
The EEX exchange's CEO confirmed to Montel that EEX will stop auctioning allowances under the REPowerEU programme once the €20 billion funding target is met, removing what has been an incremental supply overhang once that threshold is hit. The MSR is also being recalibrated under the Commission's proposal to reflect the expected reduction in total EUAs as the cap tightens toward 2040 targets.2,6
The EU ETS covers roughly 40% of bloc-wide greenhouse gas emissions across power, heavy industry and aviation, according to Edie. Emissions in those sectors have halved since the scheme launched in 2005, with approximately three-quarters of that decline attributed to the power sector, Carbon Brief reported.3,5
How the environment committee receives the CORSIA amendment, and how the Council responds in trilogue, will shape the final scope of aviation credit treatment within the ETS. ICAO's June (2026-06-05) decision to block Zimbabwe credits showed that the international aviation offset approval process can diverge sharply from what EU standards might accommodate, leaving a crediting gap that no single text correction by Liese can resolve on its own.2,4