Estonia became the latest eastern European country on Thursday to decide to launch a legal challenge to the European Commission's rejection of its national carbon dioxide emissions plan. The Estonian government said it would take the Commission to the European Court of First Instance. The Commission oversees the bloc's emissions trading scheme, part of efforts to reduce output of greenhouse gases to fight global warming. "The application by Estonia for emissions during the period 2008-2012 was 24 million tonnes per year. The Commission decided to decrease the volume by 47.8 percent," the government said in a statement.

Similar court cases have been initiated by Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, which fear that tough restrictions on emissions will harm their economies. Estonia is a small player in the overall EU scheme. Roughly 40 installations in the country were covered in the 2005-2007 period, accounting for less than 1 percent of the total number of allowances issued EU-wide. Germany, by comparison, had some 1,850 installations in that period, accounting for about 23 percent of CO2 allowances.
(Planet Ark, 13/07/2007)