*** modified on Thursday 10 November 11:30 am ***
As part of its efforts to reduce energy prices, the European Commission adopted on Wednesday 9 November a new emergency proposal to boost the deployment of renewable energy in the European Union by speeding up and facilitating the procedures for granting the permits necessary for their production.
Taking the form of a proposal for a Council Regulation (Article 122 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU), this temporary measure (one year with the possibility of extension) provides for the establishment of certain renewable energy projects as being of overriding public interest.
This would allow these projects to avoid certain obligations under EU environmental legislation. In addition, Member States would be required to ensure that such projects are given priority when balancing legal interests.
The proposal also foresees limiting the permitting procedures for certain projects such as heat pumps or solar panels.
The details of the proposal are almost identical to a draft version of the text previously detailed in our columns (see EUROPE 13059/17). The only significant change is that the Commission proposes to limit the permit-granting process for repowering of renewable energy power plants projects to six months, compared to one year in the preliminary draft.
Speaking in the European Parliament, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the new emergency measure will lead to “a myriad of renewable energy projects being unblocked over the next 12 months”. This, she says, could enable the EU to “replace 14 billion cubic metres of gas next year”, without having to wait for the new Renewable Energy Directive (REDIII) - currently being drafted (see EUROPE 13026/2) - to come into force and be transposed into national law in each Member State.
MEPs, for their part, have widely deplored the EU’s slow response to the energy crisis. Criticising the national egoism of some Member States, they called for European measures, notably to decouple the impact of gas on electricity prices.
“Now we have to work together to make sure that we buy gas together, that we store gas together, that we improve our energy infrastructure, that we improve interconnectivity”, said Siegfried Mureşan of Romania in particular, for the EPP group.
Representing the Renew Europe group, Hungarian Katalin Cseh highlighted some of her group’s suggestions: a European energy shield combined with a tax on super-profits, joint energy purchases, a temporary dynamic price cap.
German Greens/EFA co-president Terry Reintke stressed the need for massive investment in renewable energy and building insulation, while speaking against dependence on fossil fuels from dictatorships other than Russia.
See the proposal for a regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/3zm (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)