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Slota: Ministry May Never Sell 15 Million Tonnes of Emissions
Thursday 14 January 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, January 14 (TASR) - The Environment Ministry failed to sell 15 million tonnes of emission quotas last year - even though it was obliged to do so based on a Government decision - and it's not ruled out that these quotas will actually never be sold, said chairman of the Slovak National Party (SNS) Jan Slota on Thursday.
"It's been 'I don't know how long' that the ministry is out of our (SNS's) hands, and those 15 million tonnes of quotas that remained there and were supposed to be sold last year are still somewhere there, written on the wall, and nobody cares," Slota said at a news conference after his party's presidium session.
"The quota package wasn't sold, and we'll see if it ever will be. Maybe Slovakia won't sell any of them, and we'll be staring at how much we'll have lost," added Slota who is convinced that in 2008, when the Environment Ministry, then-led by SNS nominee Jaroslav Izak, sold unused emission quotas to a U.S.-based company Interblue Group for €5.05 per tonne it was an advantageous deal for Slovakia.
"Maybe we'll get to see proof from the bourse that makes it clear that we may have done a very good business," he suggested.
Slota views the scandalous case of underpriced emission quotas sale to be exaggerated. "As was the bubble artificially blown up, so did it burst," he said.
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