The European Commission’s first Executive Vice-President in charge of the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, stressed the importance of adopting the ‘Fit for 55 package’ as soon as possible in order to reduce both the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions and its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, on Thursday 28 April, in a discussion with members of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI).
“My first message today is that we need the Fit for 55 package more than ever”. We need it sooner rather than later”, said the Vice-President.
Responding to an intervention by Peter Liese (EPP, Germany), who said that European coal could have a role to play over the next 2 or 3 years in enabling some Member States to do without Russian gas, the Dutchman did not rule out this possibility. However, he insisted that this must be accompanied by an acceleration of the transition to renewable energies.
In this respect, Mr Timmermans mentioned the possibility of raising the ambition of some of the proposals in the ‘Fit for 55’ package, in particular the target for the share of renewable energy in final energy consumption by 2030.
While the majority of MEPs support a target of at least 45% (see EUROPE 12904/6), the Vice-President recalled that the Commission is currently assessing the possibility of raising the initially proposed target (40% - see EUROPE 12762/8), as requested by the Parliament’s rapporteur on this dossier, Markus Pieper (EPP, Germany).
However, he did not provide a precise date for the finalisation of this new impact assessment.
With regard to the revision of the EU energy efficiency directive (2018/2002), the Commission is also assessing the consequences of increasing the initially proposed target, in response to a request from the Parliament’s rapporteur, Niels Fuglsang (S&D, Denmark) (see EUROPE 12936/2).
In addition to these new impact assessments, the Commission is also ready to provide MEPs with non-papers- along the lines of the one sent to Member States on the ETS2 (see EUROPE 12913/16) - to help them “understand the implication of key policy choices that may emerge” in the context of discussions on the ‘Fit for 55’ package, said Mr Timmermans.
Referring to the decision by Russian gas giant Gazprom to suspend gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria because of their refusal to pay in roubles (the Russian currency), the Vice-President called for unity and for not falling into the Russian trap of playing Member States off against each other.
He recalled that the Commission will present the follow-up to its ‘REPowerEU’ plan on 18 May, stressing that this initiative is not intended to replace the ‘Fit for 55’ package, but to complement it. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)