At the meeting of EU energy ministers in Luxembourg on Monday 26 June, Spain and Portugal called for cross-border electricity interconnections to be accorded as much importance as other issues in the clean energy package, arguing for binding interconnection targets, ring-fenced funding and a strong system of governance to increase interconnection in the EU to decent levels.
Electricity interconnections are essential to a functioning interconnected energy market. The issue is crucial to the coherence of the legislative proposals of the energy package. There can be no Europe of free movement if there is no free movement of energy. It is essential, therefore, to continue with work and to improve the interconnection level with binding targets of 10% and 15% by around 2020 and 2030, Portugal stated, saying it backed clauses noting these objectives in the texts on the table.
The impression is that interconnection targets are not seen as being as important as other matters in the clean energy package, Spain said. It would like to see binding objectives on interconnection, objectives in the system of governance for energy and climate and all with appropriate funding.
Several member states gave their backing to the Spanish and Portuguese calls, stressing the importance of this issue for strengthening the EU’s energy security.
Cyprus, for example, said that the legislative provisions devoted to interconnections in the clean energy package were insufficient.
Lithuania, saying that it could understand the problems of those countries which feel like energy islands, a situation that was until recently that of the Baltic States which have now become an “energy peninsula”, said it had achieved a 15% interconnection level but that it was linked to Russia. A quantified objective is not enough, it stressed, calling on the EU to take account of specific regional situations and to give member states both political and financial assistance.
The European Council of October 2014 called for rapid implementation by EU countries of all the measures necessary for the achievement of the interconnection target of at least 10% of their electricity generation capacity installed by 2020 and to set an interconnection target of 15% by 2030. However, some countries currently remain well below the interconnection objective of 10% and will not be in a position to achieve it either by 2020 or by 2025.
On Monday, the Commission stressed that regional cooperation was crucial in this area, as were redesign legislation and electricity market governance. It also noted that the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) was one of the most appropriate instruments for funding interconnection projects. Lastly, Energy and Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete announced that the Commission was planning a revision of the legislation on trans-European energy networks and projects of common interest (PCIs). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)