At an extraordinary summit in Brussels on Sept. 30, the EU’s Council of Ministers agreed to ratify the landmark Paris climate agreement. The European Parliament, which had urged the union to step up its efforts toward ratification, was due to give its formal approval on Oct. 4 and the European Commission a day later.

Ratification by Europe will all but guarantee that the important climate pact limiting the global temperature rise to well under 2°C to “well below 2C” reaches the legal threshold before the end of the week, reports said. The agreement is planned to take effect 30 days after at least 55 countries, accounting for 55% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions, submit their ratification papers to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in New York.

Already 62 countries have completed the process of ratification, with India submitting its papers on Oct. 2. Canada and Japan were expected to follow suit by the end of this week. The EU’s vote will add six, bringing the total to 68. Not all of the EUs emissions can be counted toward the threshold, as only seven member states, including France, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Portugal and Malta, have done all the paperwork. Prime minister, Theresa May, has pledged that the UK will fulfill the criteria by the end of this year.

Commenting on the EU’s vote, Commission president President Jean-Claude Juncker said the member states “have decided to make history together and bring closer the entry into force of the first ever universally binding climate change agreement. We must and we can hand over to future generations a world that is more stable, a healthier planet, fairer societies and more prosperous economies,” Juncker said. “This is not a dream. This is a reality and it is within our reach. Today we are closer to it.”

Up to now, the EU, which had spearheaded the effort to ratify the last agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, and was also at the forefront of the current discussions, had been seen as foot dragging on ratification, due to the difficulty of getting all of the current 28 member states to make the pledge. For this reason, said the EU’s climate commissioner, Miguel Arias Cañete, “Europe’s reputation was on the line.”

Some environmentalists have expressed concern about the lack of deadlines for all of the EU’s 28 members to individually ratify the Paris agreement, especially as some countries plan to allow emissions to keep increasing up to 2030. This would narrow the chances to keep the temperature rise below 2°. Coal-dependent Poland, as well as Italy, has sought the right to veto future EU climate decisions.

All the countries ratifying the agreement will have the right to speak and vote at the COP22 implementation summit, to be held in Marrakesh, Morocco, in November.