18 70. Turning to the “Dytiko Pedio” mine case, the Government states that throughout the proceedings environmental permits were in force, in accordance with the general principles of administrative law, and that when they were finally annulled by decision 519/2006 of the Supreme Administrative Court, new permits had been approved. Finally, the Government questions the relevance of the Kokkari power station case to this complaint but also notes that no proceedings have been launched to enforce the execution of decision 4577/1998 of the Supreme Administrative Court, and that in any event the plant is operating on the basis of a valid environmental permit. Environmental policy in the energy sector 71. The Government maintains that Greece has long demonstrated its commitment to combating climate change with a series of ambitious and practical measures, including ratification of the Rio Convention and the Kyoto Protocol and transposition of relevant Community directives. It points out that Greece's right to increase greenhouse gas emissions by 25% under the Community's Kyoto burdensharing agreement reflects an economic policy decision to enable countries such as Greece to move closer to the European average per capita GDP. 72. Greece is pursuing its efforts in the two directions specified in European and international regulations and agreements for achieving the Kyoto objectives, principally by limiting emissions and, secondarily, by using flexible mechanisms such as the European scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading. 73. The Government says that Greece has made demonstrable progress in implementing its commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in general and CO2 in particular and has met the objectives set in accordance with established forecasts and scenarios. 74. Unlike the MFHR, it considers that the European Commission's approval for Greece's first national allocation plan (NAP1) and the emissions allowance distribution is a significant development, since it follows a detailed examination of the formal and substantive criteria laid down in Directive 2003/87 and of the energy scenarios described in the plan. 75. The Government acknowledges that the BaU scenario in PNA1 (2005-2007) predicts an increase of 39.2% in greenhouse gas emissions for the whole country and all sectors combined up to 2010. However, it maintains that the purpose of such a scenario is to determine what efforts are required to achieve the objectives. In practice, CO2 emission quotas for DEH plants were 2 533 863 tonnes (4.6%) below the BaU forecasts and thanks to various efficiency measures 80.6% of this total was covered by a real reduction of 2 041 507 tonnes (3.7%) in DEH CO2 emissions. The remaining 19.4% came from the purchase of quotas.