EU ETS Auction Revision Adds Net Supply for 2026 as Market Holds Flat
Weekly EUA volumes fall 28% from September under revised EEX schedules, but the 2026 annual total rises, leaving ICE EUA Dec-rolling near unchanged.
A revision to EU carbon auction volumes announced late on Wednesday (2026-07-30) is unlikely to move ICE EUA Dec-rolling materially, market participants told Montel on Friday (2026-07-31). The exchange settled at €80.82/tCO2 on Monday (2026-08-04), after two sessions to absorb the change.5
The headline weekly figure sounds like a supply squeeze. EEX data show total weekly auction volumes from September, including the fortnightly Polish tender, will fall to 11.9m EUAs — 28% lower than previously scheduled levels. Session by session, that is a large cut.5
But the annual picture runs the other way. A total of 484.4m EUAs are scheduled for auction across 2026, around 3% more than the 467.8m EUAs pencilled in under the prior plan, according to EEX data. Supply was front-loaded earlier in the year, leaving less to distribute in autumn. The net effect on full-year market supply is a modest increase, which is the basis on which analysts told Montel they expect limited price response.5
Poland's fortnightly tender is embedded in that 11.9m weekly figure, and Poland carries its own legal complication. The European Commission referred Poland — alongside Spain — to the Court of Justice of the European Union on Thursday (2026-06-04) for failing to fully transpose ETS rule changes into national law, according to a Commission notice filed that day. Those proceedings remain unresolved and have no immediate bearing on auction mechanics. But any slippage in Poland's tender cadence would affect the weekly volumes EEX published.1,5
The auction revision is not the only supply-side variable active in the market. A committee of national governments reviewing benchmarks for free allowance allocations to industry until 2030 found on Tuesday (2026-06-16) that updating those benchmarks would loosen the EU ETS market balance and weigh on prices, analysts told Montel at the time. Free allocations reduce industrial demand at auction; loosening the benchmarks adds effective supply without touching the auction calendar at all.3
The REPowerEU auction programme adds a further layer of uncertainty. EEX confirmed to Carbon Pulse that it will stop auctioning allowances under the scheme — which funds the bloc's efforts to exit Russian fossil fuels — once the €20 billion target is reached, the exchange CEO said in an interview. The timing of that cutoff is not fixed, and the volume of REPowerEU allowances still to be sold before the programme closes remains a live variable heading into the final quarter.2
These supply pressures have been accumulating since spring. Reuters reported on 30 April (2026-04-30) that analysts had significantly cut their EU carbon price forecasts for the next two years, citing uncertainty over proposed policy changes and future supply levels. The auction calendar revision, taken alone, does not change that picture in a meaningful way.4
The September schedule will be the first practical test of the revised volumes. How quickly EEX exhausts the remaining REPowerEU allocation will shape supply expectations in the fourth quarter, and the status of Poland's legal proceedings with Brussels adds an unpredictable element to every weekly figure that includes the Polish tender.1,2,5