More than 100 civil society organisations, mainly NGOs, sent a joint letter to European Union Member States asking them to exclude fossil gas projects from the EU’s 5th list of projects of common interest (PCIs), on Monday 8 November, on the sidelines of an expert meeting on the formation of the list.
“We are highly concerned about plans to include fossil gas mega projects in the list, awarding fossil fuel infrastructure a top EU priority label and making these projects eligible for public financing”, the signatory organisations say.
In their view, the inclusion in the 5th list of projects such as the Poseidon, Baltic Pipe, BRUA and EastMed pipelines “heavily undermines the European Green Deal”, risks “creating costly stranded assets” (see EUROPE 12751/34) and “fuelling further conflicts”.
Receiving PCI status allows European cross-border energy infrastructure projects to benefit from a number of advantages, including the possibility of receiving European funds.
The formation of the PCI list is governed by the EU Regulation (347/2013) on Trans-European Energy Networks (TEN-E) which is currently under revision. The 5th list of PCIs, which is due to be published on 18 November, is nevertheless established under the current regulation.
See the letter: https://bit.ly/3kBIa6P (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)