Irish MEP Seán Kelly has expressed confidence that a key proposed safeguard under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) will be adopted, despite the European Parliament voting against it.

In a vote this week, the full European Parliament voted against adopting this safeguard; but the margin was not very wide, with 362 voting to scrap the safeguard, but a significant 272 voting to retain it (with 25 MEPs abstaining).

According to Kelly, the level of support for retaining the safeguard is sufficiently high to show that the Socialists and Democrats (S&Ds) in the parliament, who spearheaded the removal of the safeguard, have a weak mandate on the matter.

This, the Ireland South MEP believes, will be a key factor when the parliament begins talks with member states (trilogue negotiations) in the Council of the EU on the final text of updated CBAM legislation.

The CBAM, which came into force in January, is essentially a tax on imports of carbon-intensive products into the EU, including fertiliser.

The measure requires importers of fertiliser to pay for certificates to import products.

The European Commission had proposed an amendment to CBAM that would allow products to be temporarily removed from its scope in exceptional circumstances that could harm EU markets and push prices too high.

This is the safeguard that was voted down this week.

However, reacting to the vote, Kelly said: "The vote [this] week showed just how split MEPs are on this issue.

"While parliament supported the deletion of the article, a majority of 362 to 272 is not a convincing one, and it leaves the [S&Ds] with a weak mandate on the matter heading into trilogue negotiations," the Fine Gael MEP said.

"My own group was similarly split, with 45% of EPP [European People's Party] MEPs voting to preserve the...safeguard," Kelly said.

"I think this level of support will be significant at the negotiating table, and we will ultimately end up with a clear safeguard in place that will enable us to act to protect our farmers from possible extreme price impacts of CBAM," he added.