Belgium – Environmental services – Support to the Commission for the assessment of submitted National Implementation Measures

Directive 2003/87/EC (the EU ETS Directive) has been revised for the allocation period 2026 to 2030. In September 2024, Member States will have to submit to the Commission the list of installations covered by the Directive, as well as any free allocation for the period 2026 to 2030 for each installation in the list, calculated in accordance with Union-wide harmonised free allocation rules. The data collected, referred to as National Implementation Measures (NIMs), must be verified and assessed by the Member States and thereafter submitted to the Commission in September 2024 that will, in turn, perform an assessment to determine compliance with the relevant legal provisions. Given the technical nature of the assessment, the amount of numbers that must be checked, the complexity of the free allocation rules, the formal and informal communication with the Member States and the short timeframe for concluding this work, as well as our previous experience, we foresee the need for support from a contractor for carrying out the assessment of the data. This will be extremely time-consuming work and also very important, as free allocation will have a financial impact on the participating companies. Moreover, it will be crucial to ensure comparably robust data across Member States, so a thorough assessment will need to be performed.