Ahead of the EU summit on 21-22 October, which will deal with rising energy prices, Poland has circulated a paper calling for consideration to be given to reviewing or postponing some of the proposals in the ‘Fit for 55 package’ to avoid placing an excessive burden on EU citizens.
“We should analyse in detail all elements of the ‘Fit for 55’ package that can have a negative impact on the energy price and consider their revision or postponement”, the document obtained by EUROPE stresses.
Two proposals are of particular concern to the Polish government: the revision of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) (see EUROPE 12762/1) and the revision of the EU Energy Tax Directive (2003/96) (see EUROPE 12762/9).
With regard to the former, Warsaw calls in particular to abandon the idea of establishing a second ETS covering heating of buildings and road transport, deeming it “less effective and more expensive socially than improvement of EU wide standards”.
It also recommends reforming the current ETS to “limit speculation”.
“Unpredictable emission allowances’ prices surge is driven by speculation rather than EU ETS market fundamentals”, the Polish paper argues, while highlighting the risk of a market bubble.
Adding: “It is clear that electricity prices in the EU are currently driven by high gas prices. However, the EU ETS allowance prices have also a considerable impact on certain parts of the energy market”.
On energy taxation, Warsaw calls to “preserve current minimum energy taxation levels”.
The Polish paper also proposes to amend the EU Regulation (2017/1938) on security of supply of fossil gas by introducing a gas storage obligation in each Member State.
Furthermore, Warsaw urges the EU institutions to immediately adopt a delegated act to include nuclear and fossil gas in the EU taxonomy (see EUROPE 12703/2, 12764/12), as well as to launch actions under Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union in order to “prevent the unlawful practices of the dominant supplier on the upstream (gas) market”.
Without naming it, Poland is targeting the Russian giant Gazprom, which it accuses of manipulating the market by “leaving existing pipelines and storage capacities largely underutilised in the midst of supply scarcity”. These accusations were recently rejected by Russian President Vladimir Putin (see EUROPE 12807/13). (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)