The consultation covers all aspects of auctioning that may be relevant for the future Regulation. It seeks views notably on the timing, size and frequency of auctions, auction design and regulatory aspects relating to issues such as pre-registration of participants, collateral, payment and delivery, information disclosure and monitoring. It also addresses the question of the number of auction processes that could be used and the appropriate degree of coordination between Member States.

The consultation runs for two months, i.e. until 3 August 2009. Interested stakeholders are invited to participate by filling in the online questionnaire [link closed]

Stakeholders are also invited to attend a discussion on the consultation document that will be held during the Commission's Green Week conference on 24 June in Brussels.

Background
Under the revised Emissions Trading Directive, auctioning of allowances will progressively replace free distribution as the default method of allocating allowances to businesses from 2013. This makes necessary the introduction of a set of harmonised auctioning rules through the planned Regulation.

It is expected that already in 2013 more than half of the allowances will be auctioned, since from that year onwards there will be no more free allocation to electricity generators apart from a few potential and limited exceptions. This represents a step change from the current level of auctioning, which averages about 4% of the total quantity of allowances.