Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) voted in favour of excluding natural gas from the scope of EU regulation (347/2013) on Trans-European Energy Networks (TEN-E) on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 June, during a vote on the draft opinion put forward by French MEP Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA).
“The European Parliament’s Environment Committee is calling on the EU to stop all investment in fossil fuels, especially gas”, said Toussaint on Twitter.
Adopted by a small majority (44 votes in favour, 35 against and 0 abstentions), the draft opinion is intended to feed into the work of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), which is the European Parliament’s substantive body responsible for the European Commission’s December proposal on revising the TEN-E regulation (see EUROPE 12623/3, 12618/9).
The revision aims to modernise the EU’s rules on European cross-border energy infrastructure so that they contribute to the objectives of the ‘European Green Deal’, by using a set of criteria to select infrastructure projects that are eligible for European funding (so-called ‘projects of common interest’ or PCIs).
Gas
During the amendment votes (Monday), MEPs largely rejected the proposal by the ECR and ID groups that natural gas infrastructure projects should remain within the scope of the regulation, thereby aligning themselves with the Commission’s position.
In addition, they favoured a compromise amendment that was supported by the S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and The Left (41 votes in favour, 37 against and 1 abstention) that called for the removal of low-carbon gases such as biogas and biomethane from the smart gas networks category proposed by the European Commission, over an alternative amendment that was supported by the EPP and ECR groups (see EUROPE 12744/10).
Governance
The opinion also recommends significant changes to be made to the selection process for PCIs as proposed by the European Commission.
The compromise amendments that were adopted call specifically for a substantial strengthening of the role of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), while at the same time calling for the inclusion of all actors of the energy system in the process.
According to the ENVI Committee, ACER should, among other things, be responsible for issuing guidelines for the inclusion of energy infrastructure projects in the EU-wide Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP), a role that is currently reserved for the European Network of Transmission System Operators for gas and electricity (ENTSO-G and ENTSO-E - see EUROPE 12698/9).
Furthermore, the ENVI Committee wants to include the future ‘European Scientific Advisory Council on Climate Change’ (a body set up under the European Climate Law - see EUROPE 12568/6) as part of the governance process. The latter would be tasked with drafting an opinion “to ensure that the methodologies for the cost-benefit analysis, scenarios and infrastructure gaps and EU PCI lists are in line with the EU climate targets”.
Lists by project category
MEPs are also requesting to be able to vote on delegated acts that draw up the list of PCIs for each energy category (electricity, hydrogen, electrolysers, etc.), rather than voting on a list that mixes up all the projects.
The ITRE vote on the draft report by Zdzisław Krasnodębski (ECR, Poland) is scheduled to take place on 15 July (see EUROPE 12697/14, 12695/8).
See the results of the votes on the compromise amendments: https://bit.ly/3zHCCgZ (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)