European politicians are expected this week to back by a narrow majority early action to bolster prices on the EU carbon market. Thursday's vote, one of several legislative stages, will be closely watched by traders. The European Commission, the EU executive, last year proposed putting hundreds of millions of Emissions Trading System allowances in a Market Stability Reserve (MSR) starting from 2021. Member states Germany and Britain, however, which want to boost zero carbon power generation, say 2021 is too late and have led the push to get the MSR in place for 2017, but energy intensive industry and nations whose economies rely on coal are likely to oppose that. The price of carbon permits rose last week after a vice president leading parliamentary negotiations said he had secured a deal in the main political grouping, the European People's Party, for 2019. The market took that as a sign that the full parliament will endorse carbon market reform earlier than the Commission has proposed. Parliamentary sources said lobbying would be intense ahead of each vote, making the individual outcomes hard to predict. But they anticipated the industry committee would narrowly back 2019 and the environment committee would overwhelmingly support 2017. For the full story, see http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/19/us-eu-ets-idUSKBN0KS0YH20150119.