Most members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) criticised the draft of the fourth list of EU projects of common interest (PCI) that the European Commission presented on Thursday, 17 October. In particular, they criticised it for still containing too many gas projects.
“Looking at the amount of oil and gas projects on the list, if it is the European Green Deal, we are in deep trouble”, felt Ciarán Cuffe (Greens/EFA, Ireland).
Allowing key cross-border energy infrastructure projects to benefit from a number of advantages, this new list provides for 151 PCIs, including 102 for electricity, 32 for gas, 6 for oil, 6 for smart grids, and 5 for carbon dioxide networks.
At the opening of the meeting, the Commission’s Deputy Director-General for Energy Klaus-Dieter Borchardt was pleased to announce that the ratio between electricity and gas projects had risen from 2:1 to 3:1 compared to the third list as a result. In his opinion, this illustrates the Commission’s desire to progressively replace gas projects with electricity projects.
These explanations did not seem to convince many MEPs.
For example, Michael Bloss (Greens/EFA, Germany) pointed out that while the gas/electricity ratio is now 3:1 in terms of the number of projects, it remains 1:1 in terms of the amount allocated to gas and electricity, or 1.5 billion for each of the sectors.
Maria Da Graça Carvalho (EPP, Portugal) noted that despite the increase in the number of smart grid and CO2 network projects, their share remains “negligible” compared to gas and electricity.
Like Nicolás González Casares (EPP, Spain), several MEPs also lamented the lack of transparency in the process of drawing up the list and the European Parliament’s lack of involvement in it.
In the face of criticism, Mr Borchardt tried to defend his institution’s work. He thus explained that this list aims to contribute to the three general objectives of the EU’s energy policy—sustainability, security of supply, and competitiveness—in line with the Green Deal.
“It is clear for us [the Commission] that for a foreseeable future, one decade, we will still need natural gas”, he notably declared, explaining that certain gas projects have been on the list since the very first version for reasons of energy security.
According to him, gas will allow some Member States to leave coal while maintaining their security of supply, which they would not be able to do with renewable energies. Nevertheless, he added that it was important that future gas infrastructures be able to transport “green gas” such as hydrogen or biomethane. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)