According to information gathered by EUROPE, the last meeting of the Council of the European Union’s Energy Working Group, held on Tuesday 26 January, has already led to the emergence of significant differences between Member States regarding a revision of EU Regulation (347/2013) on the Trans-European Energy Network (TEN-E), and specifically on the issue of gas.
“Not all of the Member States have taken up a position yet, but we can already see the main dividing lines and, unsurprisingly, the most divisive issue is the question of gas”, one source told us.
Presented on the 15 December 2020, the European Commission’s revision proposal provides for the exclusion of natural gas infrastructure from the scope of projects of common interest (see EUROPE 12623/3, 12618/9).
This means that upon the entry into force of the revised regulation, gas projects will no longer be eligible for PCI status, which means a cross-border energy infrastructure project can be eligible for a number of benefits, including EU financial support.
However, a group of eight Member States (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Cyprus) would oppose this idea. According to our information, these countries would ask either to reject this option outright, or to keep natural gas indirectly within the scope of the PCIs, leaving greater flexibility in the category for hydrogen projects.
According to the European Commission, this new category will only cover hydrogen projects that make a significant contribution to sustainability, in particular by enhancing the deployment of renewable hydrogen.
The eight countries, for their part, would prefer this new category to cover projects involving hydrogen-natural gas mixtures. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)