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| Commission endorses support for green electricity in Austria The European Commission has authorised, under the EC Treaty's rules on state aid, the Austrian 'feed-in' tariffs for electricity from renewable sources and the support tariff for combined heat and power installations for public district heating. This decision retroactively authorises the support measures contained in the Austrian Green Electricity Act 2002 and paves the way for the continuation of the support under the new Green Electricity Act recently adopted by the Austrian Parliament. As all the requirements of the Community guidelines for state aid for environmental protection are satisfied, the Commission considers that the aid does not threaten to distort competition in the Single Market. The decision is in line with a number of state aid decisions adopted in recent years concerning different Member States (The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Denmark), all allowing significant and long-term support for the production of green electricity. The measures were financed partly through a parafiscal levy paid by final consumers on their electricity consumption. Austria recognised that this financing mechanism could have led to discrimination against imported green electricity, which had to contribute to financing the national support scheme without being eligible to benefit from it. This could constitute a breach of Articles 25 and 90 of the EC Treaty, which outlaw respectively customs duties on imports and exports between Member States and taxes that have the effect of discriminating against products from other Member States. Austria therefore changed the financing mechanism for the future and as of 2007 will finance the scheme through a lump sum paid per meter. For the past, Austria introduced the possibility to de-tax imported green electricity provided that certain proof is given that the electricity actually stems from green sources. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Construction News :: home page |