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Medved: Interblue Group Not Settling Extra Payment for Emissions
Monday 30 November 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, November 30 (TASR) - Environment Minister Jozef Medved said on Monday that the Interblue Group (US) as of last week had failed to pay the first portion of a €15-million payment for the carbon-dioxide emission quotas as it was recently requested to do by the ministry to top up the original sum agreed under a controversial deal signed in 2007.
The balance should be settled by this Friday, but Interblue has so far not even replied to the letter urging it to do so. The extra payment is claimed based on an Green Investment Scheme (GIS), which was only recently adopted by Slovakia. It is a mechanism within the framework of International Emission Trade (IET) for achieving environmental benefits from trading carbon dioxide emission under the Kyoto Protocol.
Asked whether he is not considering taking legal action against his penultimate predecessor Jan Chrbet (SNS) for having misled the Government over the emission rights sales, Medved said that so far he has not found any legal infraction on Chrbet's part.
He confirmed that he is looking into the 2007 agreement with Interblue, the terms of which he says are unfavourable to Slovakia. However, the company has an option to buy more greenhouse gas rights on the agreed terms abrogated as unfavourable for Slovakia.
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