Front-year EU carbon prices rose 1.8% on Monday in one of the most thinly-traded sessions of the year as traders awaited news of trilogue talks on the MSR.

The Dec-15 EUA contract settled up 12 cents at €6.93 on ICE on turnover of around 6.8 million units, almost half the daily average traded over the previous week.

The first trilogue talks on the MSR are due to start at 1800 GMT today, Montel reported, citing an EU council official.

The first of the closed-door talks between the three EU institutions is unlikely to yield much progress ahead of two further sessions pencilled in for May 5 and May 28, an EU source told Carbon Pulse last week.

MEPs focused on climate issues are likely to speak beforehand during a webstreamed debate on future climate policies at the EU Parliament. EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete is due to speak at 1310 GMT.

“Unless the first trilogue brings a surprisingly good result, the price might trade below €7 euro this week,” said Bernadette Papp, an analyst at Budapest-based brokers Vertis, in a weekly note.

She said the market would find support at the €6.55 200-day moving average level.

Analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon said they expected prices to hold above €6.80 this week, with Wednesday’s publication of 2014 verified ETS emissions data the week’s main price driver with little expected from the MSR trilogue.

“We expect market participants to have priced in a 5% decrease year on year (from the emissions data),” the analysts said in a note.

Earlier in the session, the EU’s sale of 2.9 million spot EUAs cleared 3 cents above market at €6.81 and was 2.85 times subscribed, auction hosts EEX said.

Tuesday is the last day to exchange CERs or ERUs issued against pre-2013 emission reductions for EU Allowances, with CER daily futures trade suspended on ICE until Apr. 1.

By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com