Court rejects cement producer complaints

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected applications lodged by a number of Polish cement producers to have a decision of the European Commission concerning Poland's National Allocation Plan (NAP), for the allocation of greenhouse gas emission allowances for 2008-2012, annulled.


In its decision the Commission concluded that certain criteria listed in the European Directive establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the community had not been complied with and that the total annual quantity of emission allowances proposed by Poland in their NAP had to be reduced.

In response to the applicants’ action for annulment the Commission raised an objection of admissibility on the grounds that the decision was addressed to Poland itself and was not of direct and individual concern to the applicants.

The arguments put forward, that Poland was bound by the quantity imposed unilaterally by the Commission in its decision and therefore enjoyed no discretion at the stage of implementation of the NAP, were rejected by the Court.

The Court held that Poland did retain a margin of discretion with respect to the NAP, that it was Poland’s responsibility to implement the NAP and to allocate the specific allowances to individual installations. The Court also found that by its decision the Commission did not adopt a position on the share of the total quantity of allowances that Poland intended to allocate to the applicants.

Accordingly, the Court dismissed all the applications on grounds of inadmissibility.

The full judgments of the ECJ for each company are available in a number of European languages from the following links:

Gόrażdże Cement

Lafarge Cement

Dyckerhoff Polska

Grupa Ożarów

Cementownia “Warta”

Cementownia “Odra”

Cemex Polska

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