The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union have reportedly agreed not to deal with the issue of defining the criteria for renewable hydrogen in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), but to leave it to the European Commission through a delegated act, on Tuesday 15 November, during the second session of inter-institutional negotiations on the revision of RED (‘trilogues’).
While the procedure initially envisaged was that of a delegated act, a voting session in Parliament led to the adoption of an amendment by the rapporteur, Markus Pieper (EPP, German), which provides for the introduction of criteria for the production of renewable hydrogen in the RED directive (see EUROPE 13022/7).
According to information gathered by EUROPE, Mr Pieper is finally ready to leave it up to the Commission, provided it acts quickly.
“It may not be necessary to include this point in the trilogues, but it could be discussed if the Commission takes too long”, a source told us.
On 28 October, Mr Pieper and the shadow rapporteurs of the S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and ECR groups sent a letter to the Commission calling on it to present the delegated act “as soon as possible”. According to the signatories, this delegated act should link the positions of the different institutions, while covering sectors other than transport.
“If these options do not work, we will conclude the negotiations [on this issue] in the trilogue”, the letter obtained by EUROPE goes on to say.
Heating and cooling
The European Parliament and EU Council negotiators also reportedly reached a compromise on the use of renewable energy in the heating and cooling sector. The target would be a binding annual increase of 0.8 percentage points (pp) in 2021-2025 and 1.1 pp in 2026-2030.
However, at this stage they have not been able to agree on the issue of joint renewable energy projects between Member States, as the EU Council rejects the idea of binding targets on the number of projects to be carried out.
Many issues remain to be addressed in the upcoming trilogues, such as biomass, the transport sector, the speeding up of issuing permits and the EU target for the share of renewable energy in the energy mix by 2030.
See the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/433 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)