EU officials meeting in Brussels are aiming to resume talks later today over when the MSR should start, sources told Carbon Pulse, after the diplomats failed to reach agreement following two hours of negotiations on Wednesday morning.

“Parties were unable to reach an agreement this morning. The start date, backloaded and unallocated permits were the key discussion points,” one source said, adding that there was a possibility that the talks could resume this afternoon.

Another source said that while the MSR was not on the meeting’s afternoon agenda, western EU member states were pushing for the issue to be revisited by officials before the end of the day, adding that he expected an outcome to be reached around 1600 GMT.

The group of around 15 countries are insistent that a common position be reached today and that EU presidency holder Latvia be given a mandate to open trilogue negotiations with MEPs, the source added, which could begin as soon as Mar. 30.

Germany, Britain and the group of western European countries continue to push for an earlier MSR start – which is also backed by European Parliament – while Poland and a blocking minority refused to budge on the 2021 date originally proposed by the European Commission.

While this morning’s impasse was expected by many, EUAs fell by more than 4% after Reuters reported the meeting had failed to reach an agreement, to an intraday low of €6.77.

By Mike Szabo and Ben Garside – news@carbon-pulse.com