CNVM fighting Finance Ministry over CO2 certificate trading

The National Securities Commission (CNVM) wants to change the
status of CO2 certificates from commodities to securities to gain a
new fee source, but the Finance Ministry does not agree with the
idea as it would lose the VAT applied to trades in these
certificates. The stake of emission certificates in the case of the
state is the 24% VAT going to the budget, which would be lost
should the certificates come to be viewed as securities, while the
CNVM would stand to gain from the 0.08% fee applied to trades with
such certificates and brokers from fees of as much as 1% from the
value of transfers. The biggest CO2 certificate trader in Romania,
KDF Energy estimates the value of domestic transfers last year
reached 350m euros and expects the market to go down to around 200m
euros this year. Finance officials say all current CO2 certificate
trades carry VAT, as these are considered services providing. They
also say that none of EU directives on VAT exemption for emission
certificate transfers applies in Romania. CNVM plans to change the
status of emission certificates into securities, saying this would
lead to much lower costs related to their trading and the
possibility of their trading on a regulated market where prices are
set transparently.