Gregory Barker has announced that the EU emissions trading scheme (EUETS) will restart in London on Friday morning at 7am.

The European Commission suspended trading across the whole market on January 19th after a series of cyber attacks on various countries trading registries (see our story EU spot trading suspended Jan 21st), particularly the Czech republic.

The UK agreed with the Commission that member states wouldn’t reopn the registries until they had shown they’d met security standards. The UK registry is widely seen as one of the most secure registries in Europe with at least one market participant recommending this week its clients should use the UK registry.

The UK’s registry administrator, the Environment Agency, earlier this week submitted the required evidence to the Commission and has now been given the okay to open on Friday.

Mr Barker said: “While it is important to ensure a minimum level of security now to ensure the reopening of the registries, the UK will continue to press the European Commission to ensure that registry security across Europe is raised above this level. This is vital to ensure continued confidence in this growing market.”

The halt in trading did have some impact on the carbon market particularly spot trading but 90% of the UK market is in the futures sector and was unaffected. The impact on allowance prices has so far been limited.