Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced today that “together with a group of countries, we have sent a letter to the European Commission to allow the continuation of free CO2 emission allowances for industry, including Polish industry”. “Today, under pressure from the President and growing opposition from Poles, [Donald Tusk] is trying to present himself as a defender of free allowances. This is political hypocrisy that cannot be covered up by ad hoc declarations,” said Paweł Szefernaker, Head of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland.
In recent weeks, there has been increasing discussion across Europe about revising the EU Emissions Trading System. Some countries have already announced national-level changes to the system.
“The Italian government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni adopted at the end of February 2026 a package of changes to the energy market, which предусматриes shifting the costs of purchasing carbon emission allowances (ETS) from electricity bills directly to the state budget and compensating energy producers for these costs. The government explained that such a move is intended to reduce bills for households and businesses in the face of record-high electricity prices in Italy and to strengthen the competitiveness of the national economy”, reported the filarybiznesu.pl portal.
Remarks about modernizing the system were also recently made by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“When it comes to ETS, let me give one figure: without ETS, we would now be using 100 billion cubic meters more gas, which would again make us more vulnerable and more dependent. Therefore, we need ETS, but we must modernize it. I look forward to continuing the current debate in the European Parliament”, said von der Leyen.
This debate is also visible in the Polish political sphere.
Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Law and Justice (PiS) stated that ETS should be suspended immediately. On Monday, leading politicians of Law and Justice (PiS) submitted a draft resolution to the Sejm obliging the government to withdraw from the system.
“Today, the current occupant of this building is doing nothing to fight this harmful ETS system. Over two years ago, I presented the irreconcilable trinity – a welfare state, a strong armed military, and climate policy. You can only have two out of three, never all three at once. That is why I am traveling across Europe, building a coalition to eliminate this suicidal anti-economic mechanism as quickly as possible. We must build a coalition so that the EU finally comes to its senses. Will Europe remain a continent of development, or will we decline? This is not only about development and fighting unemployment, but also about security”, said Morawiecki today during a press conference in front of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.
He emphasized that ETS must be suspended immediately.
During his speech at the “Power Connect” conference, Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that “together with a group of countries, we have sent a letter to the European Commission to allow the continuation of free CO2 emission allowances for industry, including Polish industry”. He clarified that this is a “strong manifesto” of Poland, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Greece and other countries willing to support this demand.
Tusk also stressed that he would try to convince European partners to change the philosophy of energy and climate policy so that each member state could count on a tailored approach reflecting its specific circumstances.
The Minister of Climate and Environment, Paulina Hennig-Kloska, stated on social media that “it is not possible to unilaterally withdraw” from the ETS system, “but it can and must be reformed”.
Head of the President’s Office Paweł Szefernaker responded to Tusk’s declaration, saying that Tusk “under pressure is not himself”.
“As President of the European Council and leader of the EPP, he supported the expansion of the ETS system and further Green Deal solutions. Today, under pressure from the President and growing opposition from Poles, he is trying to present himself as a defender of free allowances. This is political hypocrisy that cannot be covered up by ad hoc declarations”, Szefernaker stated.
He added that the proposal of free allowances is not enough, and that what is needed includes removing financial institutions from the ETS trading market, abandoning ETS2, and introducing mechanisms to limit ETS prices.
“Poland’s interest today requires much more than correcting the mistakes that Donald Tusk previously co-created. The goal of our state should be to dismantle the current EU ETS system – a system created and pushed by Donald Tusk and the EPP environment, the consequence of which today is weakening competitiveness and the decline of European, including Polish, industry”, he added.
On Tuesday morning, President Karol Nawrocki sent a letter to Donald Tusk, in which he expects the government to “adopt a position that fully protects Poles from further consequences of climate policy”.
Among the proposals presented in the letter was, among others, abandoning the ETS system.
“This would immediately reduce cost pressure on industry, restore more balanced conditions for global trade, and halt the ongoing process of deindustrialization. If such action did not quickly gain support from member states, it would be necessary to immediately introduce a deep and decisive limitation reducing the scale of negative economic effects currently observed in Europe and constituting the minimum necessary to protect the European industrial base”, wrote Nawrocki.
He assessed that immediate actions should include: introducing the possibility of paying a substitute fee instead of surrendering emission allowances, implementing a mechanism to lower allowance prices until energy prices fall to internationally competitive levels, excluding financial institutions from the market to limit speculation, maintaining a real system of free allowances for industry – including sectors covered by CBAM – and suspending updates of product benchmarks for 2026-2030.
An EU summit on ETS will take place on Thursday, March 19.