BRUSSELS - The European Commission announced on Wednesday night that it has ordered the suspension of all CO2 transactions in the EU until January 26, after uncovering the theft of rights to pollute in several states and their resale on the market. .
The suspension of transactions on all registers of the EU states comes into force from Wednesday 19H00 (18H00 GMT) and will last until 26 January 19H00 (18H00 GMT), said the Commission in a statement.
This measure was decided after the discovery of cybercriminal attacks against the registers in which the CO2 quotas issued in Austria, Greece, the Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia are counted.
"Hackers" have succeeded in breaking down the security of the registers and stealing rights which they immediately resold ", it was added. The rights stolen in the Czech Republic are worth 7 million euros.
"The attacks were concerted. They took place over several days with the aim of stealing credits to resell them on the spot market (real-time market) on which transactions are immediate," said the Commission.
The suspension of trade decided on Wednesday is temporary and the Commission hopes that the deadline will allow the authorities of the Member States to take the necessary measures to secure access to their registers.
This is not the first time that cybercrime attacks have been carried out on the European carbon market. In February, holders of carbon quotas in Europe had received emails encouraging them to divulge their password, a cybercriminal technique known as "phishing".
These attacks sparked panic and thirteen countries including Spain and the Netherlands had to suspend all their operations on CO2.
The CO2 market had previously been the victim of a huge VAT fraud in 2008 and 2009, valued at 5 billion by the Europol police co-operation organization.
The market for CO2 allowance trading in industry is one of the tools put in place under the Kyoto Protocol to stem emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases.
The EU allocates quotas each year to the Member States, which distribute them among their companies. These rights to issue CO2 are recorded in a register. If companies have more needs, they buy market rights from surplus manufacturers.
These rights to pollute are for the moment freely allocated by the EU states, but they will become payable from 2013.
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