Brussels, 23/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 18 March, the energy committee (ITRE) at the European Parliament unanimously adopted the report of Alejo Vidal-Quadras (EPP, Spain) on the draft regulation for gas supply security. This text aims to enhance the current Community system based on Directive 2004/67/EC and prevent future winter gas shortages, which occurred in 2008 and 2009, following the crises between Russia and Ukraine. The text put on the table in July 2009 by the European Commission seeks to rectify the lack of coordination and insufficient inter-connection between energy infrastructures in member states. The ITRE committee amendments seek to toughen up measures to prevent shortages and set out new requirements in the plans to tackle serious cuts in gas supplies in non-EU countries.
In the event of main infrastructure failure, member states will ensure that the remaining infrastructure
(N-1) is able to meet the total equivalent demand for an “exceptionally high” day's consumption (statistically observed every 20 years). The national authorities will also have to comply with the standard on gas infrastructure, particularly with regard to setting up, in certain cases, inversion flow supplies through the interconnection of the EU gas network and putting an end to dependency on a single third country supplier. The Commission will be required to draw up a long-term supply strategy; one year after entry into force of the regulation, it will present a report assessing GNL installations, storage capacity and regional cooperation. It will also propose recommendations for improving preventative and emergency action plans. If, despite the application of preventive measures, an emergency situation occurs due to a serious problem or peak in domestic consumption, with which market mechanisms are unable to tackle, the EU will have to implement an emergency plan to ensure cross-border access to storage installations and to avoid restrictions on gas flows between countries. The ITRE committee also modified the EU emergency declaration threshold and expanded the Commission's areas of action, for example, when providing assistance to regions that have been severely affected. The terms of the amended text stipulate that EU emergency measures will automatically apply, together with verification by the Commission on respect for the conditions, when: more than one member state declares a situation of national emergency; -when the EU loses more than 20% of its daily gas imports from a third country; - when a member state or specific EU region declares an emergency situation where the whole of the region is losing more than 10% of its daily gas imports from a third country. In an effort to reinforce supply security, the amended text also calls for regional cooperation between several zones in a country. Furthermore, the Commission could declare an emergency situation in the EU when a member state requests it. The draft text will be submitted to the vote of the plenary session next May. (E.H./transl.fl)