EU member states collectively handed out just 17 million free carbon allowances to industry over the past fortnight, with Germany accounting for nearly all of that and Italy, Spain and Finland still having made no progress at all on their 2016 allocations.

The latest issuance figures, published by the European Commission on Thursday after market close, showed that, even a month after the bloc’s informal allocation deadline, EU member states had still only distributed 76% of their collective quota of 750.9 million units.

Most of the outstanding allocations were due to ongoing delays by the Spanish, Italian, and Finnish governments, though a handful of other countries, including the UK, Hungary, and Romania, had still handed out only 65-80% of their totals.

The industrial sectors in Italy and Spain have been assigned around 70 and 59 million permits each, respectively, while Finland is allowed to hand out 19.4 million, the data showed.

Since the commission’s last update on Mar. 17, Germany distributed a further 16.24 million allowances, bringing the EU’s top emitter close to its total allocation quota of 154.4 million.

The data release gives another official glimpse into how governments are progressing in their free carbon permit hand-outs.

Market participants watch the allocations closely as they can weigh on prices should some companies in need of cash decide to sell parts of their allowance inventories upon receiving them.

The Commission said it would publish an update to the figures on Apr. 14.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com