France, the current holder of the EU presidency, hopes to achieve a compromise between the member states before a December meeting, in the Polish city of Poznan, to discuss a new global deal on limiting greenhouse-gas emissions.
The European Commission’s proposed package of climate measures – aimed at cutting carbon-dioxide emissions by a fifth by 2020 compared with 1990 levels — is facing opposition from Poland and four other former communist states, as well as the automobile industry. Poland fears that EU climate goals may cause energy price increases of up to 70%.
"For Poland, the current proposal is still more a threat than an opportunity, I think,” Piotr Serafin, a deputy head of the Office of the Committee for European Integration, told a climate change panel organised by a pro-EU think-tank. “If the EU wants to set an example in Poznan, it has to work out a consensus within the bloc first.”
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