EU member states in Eastern Europe have rejected the idea of using the revenue generated by the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to increase the EU budget, as EU leaders met on Friday to discuss how to pay for the relaunch after the coronavirus pandemic, according to sources consulted by Reuters.

If the draft of the Community Executive is approved, the way in which the debts will be repaid will also have to be finalized. The European Commission has proposed raising new funds for the European Union budget, including using the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to raise an additional €10 billion, according to Agerpres.

But this proposal has met with opposition from Eastern European member states, which want to keep the revenue generated by the ETS. According to diplomatic sources quoted by Reuters, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia and Bulgaria oppose the idea.

“The expansion of ETS revenues is unacceptable to us because it would cost us too much,” said a senior European diplomat of one of the eastern countries.

The European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) puts a price on pollution because it forces power plants and production units to buy certificates to cover their polluting emissions. Revenues from the sale of pollution certificates, which in 2019 amounted to 14.6 billion euro, now go to national budgets.

The European Commission has proposed that, starting in 2021, member countries keep the same revenues generated by the ETS system as in recent years, but that additional revenues, which will arise as a result of the expansion of the ETS system to the shipping industry, go to the EU budget.