A technical meeting between EU member state officials on Tuesday yielded no decisions on how the countries will reach a common position on the MSR, teeing up crunch talks for next week, two government sources close to the process said on Wednesday.

“Nothing has been decided yet … the elephant in the room is still the starting date,” a government official told Carbon Pulse, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the process.

The official said Latvia will circulate a new draft text to delegations on Friday and request a mandate at Apr. 29’s Coreper meeting.

Latvia is chairing the EU Council of member state talks and needs a common position to resume trilogue negotiations with the Parliament and Commission, scheduled for May 5 and 26.

It has proposed strengthening the Commission’s original text by putting backloaded and unallocated EUAs directly into the MSR in a bid to appease western member states, who are pushing to bring forward the 2021 start date that a Poland-led blocking minority is insisting upon.

By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com