Bulgaria sends revised 2008-12 CO2 plan to Brussels

Bulgaria, the only EU member state without an approved plan, hopes to get Brussels' nod in two months and distribute 42.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) permits a year to 132 installations, Environment Minister Nona Karadzhova said.

The new center-right government of the GERB party, which won July elections on promises to tackle rampant corruption and crime, has said it has tackled all shortcomings of the plan, which the European Commission has rejected two times.

"The plan has been revised in close co-operation with the European Commission so that we can be sure there will be no problems with its approval," Karadzhova told reporters.

Industry groups and carbon traders have criticized the previous Socialist-led government for lack of transparency, favoring certain companies over others and failing to respond to remarks by the EU's executive.

The Commission has rejected the plan two times, saying Sofia should exclude new industrial installations that were yet to become operational. It also demanded transparency in the way the quotas were allocated, saying some were treated preferentially.

The plan will allow Bulgarian industrial producers to join the EU's carbon trading scheme, the 27-nation bloc's main strategy to fight climate change.

It sets an overall cap on permits to emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) to energy-intensive industry, but allows companies to trade these permits among themselves.

Cash-stripped Bulgaria, hard hit by recession, is also seeking to sell its quota of Kyoto Protocol emission rights and is in negotiations with Japan and Spain, Karadzhova said.

Under Kyoto, signatory countries that are comfortably below their greenhouse gas emissions targets can sell excess emissions rights to other nations struggling to meet their own targets.

Bulgaria has about 200-250 million tonnes of such rights. Karadzhova has said Bulgaria may get about 1-2 billion levs ($731.5 million-$1.46 billion) in revenues from such deals.