EU climate package needs improvement, Germany says

BERLIN (Reuters) - European Union proposals to slash greenhouse gas emissions are seriously flawed and fail to take sufficient account of business needs, the German Economy Ministry said on Tuesday after a meeting of government and industry officials.

Deputy Economy Minister Jochen Homann and all other speakers had expressed reservations about key parts of the EU plan because it didn't strike the right balance between climate protection and promoting competitiveness, the ministry said in a statement.

"The conclusion of the conference is that there is only limited scope for reducing (emissions) in the industrial sector and the EU climate package needs improvement in key areas," the ministry said.

As long as big polluters such as the United States, China and India were not effectively integrated into the international climate protection regime, any success achieved in Europe would be pointless, it added.

The European Commission, the EU's executive body, adopted plans in January to transform Europe's energy supply by 2020 but delayed key decisions on how to soften the impact on industry.

The Commission said the measures were a vital step in the fight against global warming and they would help curb the bloc's rising dependency on imports of fossil fuels.

The ministry said concerns expressed about the plan at the Berlin conference on Tuesday included:

- Previous efforts to protect the environment were not taken into account and polluting countries sometimes derived benefits.

- Germany would be unable to achieve an EU-mandated goal of reducing the quota of emissions trading permits by 21 percent compared to 2005 levels without the loss of growth and jobs.