The fourth round of negotiations on the modernisation of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), which began on 2 March, reportedly ended without any major breakthrough on Friday 5 March. This stalemate is beginning to annoy some Member States in the European Union.
“I deeply regret that no progress has been made in the 4th round of the Energy Charter Treaty modernisation process on phasing out fossil fuels”, Luxembourg’s Minister for Energy and Spatial Planning, Claude Turmes, said on Twitter on 6 March.
According to information gathered by EUROPE, the Luxembourg, French and Austrian delegations also expressed their disappointment at the lack of participation of the contracting parties in the process of modernising the ECT on Tuesday 9 March at a meeting of the EU Council’s Energy Experts Group.
While more than 50 countries have signed the treaty, many of them were indeed absent for the fourth round of negotiations (not including the EU countries represented by the Commission), it was reported.
However, this fourth round of negotiations focused on a very important aspect of the treaty: the definition of ‘economic activity in the energy sector’. Specifically, it was a question of defining which energy activities will be covered by the revised Treaty.
In order to move the discussions forward, the Commission presented the EU proposal in this respect to the other contracting parties to the ECT. This was sent to the ECT secretariat at the last minute due to difficult negotiations with the Member States (see EUROPE 12659/16).
It provides that the Treaty cease to apply to future investments in fossil fuels and fossil fuel-fired power generation upon entry into force of its revised version, while suggesting a longer timeframe for certain investments depending on the CO2 intensity of those investments.
Apart from a favourable reception from the UK, the EU’s proposal did not seem to convince the few ECT signatories present at this fourth round of talks, we have learned.
Kazakhstan and Japan in particular were reported to have expressed reservations, while Switzerland has asked for more details.
Turkey and Georgia also asked for more details on the EU proposal, while stressing the need to secure energy supplies.
The EU under pressure
While negotiations are stalling, public pressure at EU level is mounting.
More than a million European citizens have signed a petition launched by various NGOs to call on the EU and its Member States to get out of the ECT and stop its expansion to other countries.
Indeed, France and Spain had recently written to the Commission pleading for the EU to consider this option, should the modernisation process stall or fail (see EUROPE 12658/6). The Commission, while not totally ruling it out, had expressed serious reservations about such an option (see EUROPE 12655/10, 12615/35).
With the fifth round of negotiations taking place from 1 to 4 June, the ECT secretariat has announced that it will be drafting compromise proposals to be discussed in one of the next rounds of negotiations scheduled for this year.
In addition, a technical meeting dedicated to the definition of ‘economic activity in the energy sector’ will be held on 23 March. According to our information, the institution would like this issue to be added to the agenda of the fifth round of negotiations. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)