Brussels Complains over TES 6

11. 11. 2011

Brussels Complains over TES 6


The Slovenian environmental organisation Focus and the Environmental Law Service (ELS) of the Czech Republic allege that the Slovenian authorities violated Article 33 of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) directive.

"The issue is that the CCS feasibility assessment was not done in the quality required by European legislation, was done late in the process and the Slovenian government refused to re-evaluate the report. All these reasons are contravening EU law," Martin Fadrny of the ELS said in Brussels on Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

In his view the fact of breach of European law can be a high risk for the financing of the TES 6 project as the European financial institutions involved in its financing (EIB and EBRD) need to operate in line with EU law.

The complaint, which was lodged with the European Commission earlier this month, is backed up by a report on the implementation of the CCS feasibility assessment report for TES 6.

The report, compiled by the international environmental NGO Bellona Foundation in cooperation with the ELS, points to a number of flaws in TES 6 studies, including lack of transparency as to the origin of data such as those concerning cost estimates, and poor analysis.

 

Once projects like TES 6 are built, they will probably be there for many decades to come, so it is important they are built in line with CCS standards or else the will become "carbon time bombs that will cost a lot of money to consumers or taxpayers", Bellone director Eivind Hoff said.

 

 

 

 

The report on TES 6 is the first of its kind. Bellona Foundation explained that the Slovenian plant was the first to be scrutinised in such a way as the CCS directive did not come into effect until June 2009 and there had been few such projects co-funded by European financial institutions since.

 

If the European Commission agrees with the allegation that Slovenia has breached the directive, it can initiate infringement proceedings against the country, a three-stage process involving two warnings after which the country may be take to the EU court.

 

The TES 6 project, whose costs have ballooned from an initial estimate of EUR 600m to EUR 1.3bn, is being carried out with loans worth EUR 750m.

However, the Slovenian parliament failed to approve last month a bill that would grant a EUR 440m worth state guarantee needed for the loan.

 

SOURCE: The Slovenia Times

 

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