The European Parliament voted on Tuesday 12 September by 567 to 101, with 23 abstentions, to approve the revised regulation on the security of gas supply.
The new rules, which result from a trialogue agreement among the Parliament, Council and Commission reached in April (see EUROPE 11776), seek to minimise the impact of disruption to gas supply for EU member states by enhancing cooperation through a common coordinated approach for national security of supply measures.
For the first time, the solidarity principle will apply: an EU member state facing an imminent gas shortage will be able to alert the other member states of the situation and trigger cross-border assistance to address it.
The revised regulation seeks to increase regional cooperation and coordination through four regional risk groups of countries. In each group, the countries will have to carry out regional risk assessments and will be required to prepare regional preventive action plans and emergency plans. Three levels of gas supply crisis will be available to countries – early warning, alert and emergency – in informing the Commission and the competent authorities.
The text introduces a compulsory solidarity principle in the event of extreme crises. In cases of serious gas crises, neighbouring countries will be required to ensure gas supply to households and essential social services. The solidarity mechanism will be triggered when a country indicates that cross-border intervention is needed to address a serious crisis. This measure can only be triggered in cases of threats to the safety or the health of consumers said to be “protected by solidarity”, such as households, district heating systems and essential social services.
The gas supply of the country requesting help will become a priority for the other countries of the regional group, which will provide assistance. Another member state’s assistance will only be triggered as a last resort. The requesting country will have to pay a fair price to the country ensuring the supply.
The revised regulation will ensure greater transparency of gas supply contracts. Long-term contracts which provide at least 28% of the annual gas consumption of a member state will have to be notified to the competent authority. With commercial agreements, only the contract details will be provided. Existing contracts will be notified 12 months after the regulation comes into force. If the competent authority has doubts as to the impact of a contract on security of gas supply in the country concerned and the region, it will be required to inform the Commission. In cases of key contracts that could compromise the security of supply of a member state, a region or the EU as a whole, the Commission will be able to call on the company to provide details of the contract.
The text is also pan-European in scope, introducing specific obligations for EU member states with regard to the Energy Community and it gives the Commission powers to coordinate the implementation of the legal framework between the EU and the Energy Community.
The revised text on security of gas supply is, along with the revised mechanism on the transparency of inter-governmental agreements (IGAs) on energy that was adopted in March, the flagship measure of the gas security package proposed by the Commission in February 2016 (see EUROPE 11491). After its adoption by the Council, it will be published in the Official Journal of the EU and will come into force 20 days after publication.
In the debate that preceded the vote on Tuesday, Parliament rapporteur Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland) and a number of MEPs highlighted the lack of flexibility of certain member states on this issue.
“We have decided to make concessions for numerous countries which have expressed reservations about the initial solutions proposed by the Commission”, Buzek said, mentioning Italy, Germany, France, Poland, Austria and Hungary, but nonetheless hailing the conclusion of “a very good regulation which guarantees gas supplies to our homes and other protected consumers, hospitals, emergency services, old folks’ homes and hospices in the worst crisis situations that have ever happened in the EU”.
Speaking for the ALDE Group, Pavel Telička (Czech Republic) railed against the “bitter wrangling” with the member states and the “horse trading about the percentage, about real transparency and about solidarity”. “The idea and the objectives of the Energy Union are not yet deeply rooted in the member states. So let us make sure that we implement thoroughly what we have managed to negotiate”, he said.
“We now have a solution for one of the biggest divides in Europe, which was that Gazprom and Russia could abuse not only markets, but also gas, to put political pressure on Eastern Europe. It was a bit shameful that we had an uphill fight against Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, a bit of Belgium; western European governments not understanding why it is so important for Eastern Europe to have this solidarity”, regretted Claude Turmes (Luxembourg), speaking on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)