The Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union sent Member States a new draft compromise on the proposed EU regulation on emergency response to soaring energy prices on Thursday 29 September, a day before an extraordinary meeting of EU energy ministers.
The document contains some changes compared to the previous version detailed in this publication (see EUROPE 13030/1).
For instance, it provides for new flexibility in the calculation of the 10% reduction target for Member States’ gross electricity consumption. This stipulates that EU countries would be able to take into account the increase in gross electricity consumption resulting from reaching gas demand reduction targets and electrification efforts to phase out fossil fuels.
Prague also suggests that the cap on revenues of inframarginal electricity producers should apply from December 2022 to June 2023, rather than until 31 March 2023 as stated in the previous version.
In addition, if the revenues directly derived from the implementation of the inframarginal revenue cap in the territory of a Member State and the revenues indirectly derived from cross-border agreements are insufficient to adequately support the end-users of electricity in that Member State, the Member State would be allowed to use other appropriate means, such as budgetary resources, for the same purpose and under the same conditions.
The Czech Presidency hopes to reach a political agreement between the Member States based on this text at the ministerial meeting on Friday 30 September (see EUROPE 13032/4).
See the draft compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/3br (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)