Austria accepts an EU order to cut its proposed limit on industrial emissions in 2008-2012 by over six percent and will draft plans to do so after the Easter holiday, Environment Minister Josef Proell said on Tuesday.
Despite protests from Austrian industry, Proell said the Alpine republic got off relatively lightly in Monday's European Commission ruling and Vienna was not thinking of challenging it in the European Court.
His ministry said the ruling would require Austrian industry to curb emissions by 7.43 million tonnes, or 19.5 percent more than what had been submitted to the Commission for approval.
Proell, speaking to Austria Press Agency while on a visit to South Korea, said Vienna's national emissions allocation plan had scored in the top third of European Union states. "We got out of this significantly better (than other countries)," he said.
He said Austrian industry could just about cope with the decreed reduction. The ministry said a working group of representatives of the economy and affected ministries would meet after Easter to translate the Commission's order into practice by end of May.
Austrian industry captains protested at the decision, with leading steelmaker voestalpine and building materials manufacturers warning they could shift operations abroad. Federation of Industry General Secretary Markus Beyrer described Proell's remark that industry could cope with the cuts as "out of order ... We must seriously examine whether Austria should take this decision to the European Court," he said.
Austria became the 15th EU country to be slapped with tighter emissions curbs by Brussels. The European Union executive set Austria's cap on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for companies involved in the EU emissions trading scheme at 30.7 million tonnes annually, a 6.4 percent reduction from the government's proposal.
The move was designed to help fight global warming and meet commitments to reduce emissions agreed under the Kyoto Protocol. The scheme sets limits on the amount of CO2 that big factories may emit and allows them to trade permits if they overshoot or come in below their caps.