A panel of officials requested revisions to an impact assessment of the EU’s post-2020 ETS reform proposal, leaked documents showed, suggesting further work that could potentially delay publication of the bill.

The European Commission’s impact assessment review board gave a negative opinion of a draft version of the analysis dated April 25 and said a new version must be re-submitted, according to a draft document posted on the website of environmental campaigners Change Partnership on Wednesday.

“A clearer presentation and explanation of the options and their impacts is required, in particular for the sectors most impacted,” the Commission’s Impact Assessment Board said.

Such changes are ordered into around 40% of all Commission impact assessments but the need for further work may affect the EU executive’s ability to deliver a final proposal as intended before the August summer break.

Last week Europe’s climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said the proposal might not be ready as expected before August, Reuters reported.

But on Monday, Maros Sefcovic, the Commission’s vice-president for energy union and superior to Arias Canete in the Commission’s new hierarchy, said the intention was still to publish before August. Arias Canete’s spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen also said this was the aim.

The review will govern post-2020 rules such as deepening the annual ETS cap reduction to 2.2% from the current 1.74% rate, as well as determining rules for allocating free allowances to industries deemed vulnerable to carbon leakage.

It is also due to contain proposals on whether to use unallocated allowances destined to enter the MSR in 2020 for additional carbon leakage measures.

One analyst has said that gains in EUA prices would likely be capped until the Commission gave its proposal on the ultimate fate of the unallocated allowances.

The ETS review proposal would still need to be agreed by EU lawmakers in a process that could take at least two years.

By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com