An agreement could be reached on Thursday 9 March in the interinstitutional negotiations on the revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), but points of disagreement remain between the Parliament and the Council of the EU.
The rapporteur of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, Niels Fuglsang (S&D, Danish) will try to defend the Parliament’s positions in front of the EU Council and the European Commission. “We believe it is time to reach an agreement, but we will not do so at any price. We cannot accept a low level of ambition”, he said contacted by EUROPE on the eve of the negotiations.
The issues that were still under discussion at the last trilogue on Thursday 2 March were Article 4 on setting energy efficiency targets and Article 8 on energy saving obligations, but also the role of the public sector which concerns Articles 5 and 6.
The Commission’s proposal, included in the RepowerEU plan, sets a target of increasing energy efficiency, i.e. reducing energy consumption by an additional 13% by 2030 compared to the 2020 baseline. The EU Council does not want to go beyond 9% while the Parliament targets 14.5%. According to another parliamentary source, this “ambitious” target may be difficult to achieve. The Swedish Presidency of the EU Council will try to find a compromise for a target of 11-12%.
The Parliament wants national contributions to achieve this target to be binding, while Member States are strongly opposed to this. “We then need a very strong governance mechanism”, insists Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, German), shadow rapporteur, interviewed by EUROPE, but also “that the Member States expose their indicative targets and what they have achieved to the Commission so that it can then analyse and make recommendations”. "The gap-filling mechanism is a step in this direction", she added.
Regarding the energy saving obligations, the EU Council Presidency wants to apply a principle of gradual/stepwise increases and wants to increase these energy saving obligations (‘ESOs’) up to 1.9% in 2030 while the Parliament aims at 2% per year.
The role of the public sector will also be debated again, notably concerning the definition of buildings for social purposes, the derogation for social housing sought by the Parliament, the renovation requirements, the savings target for the sector: an obligation to reduce final energy consumption by 2% each year, sought by the Parliament.
“I understand that some Member States want more flexibility in how this objective can be achieved”, conceded Niels Fuglsang. “The Parliament agrees to enter into discussions with the EU Council on this request for flexibility on condition that the Council changes its position on the general objective and accepts strong governance”.
If there is an agreement, the negotiations will be “difficult”, according to the different parties. Some interest groups even doubt that an agreement will be reached on Thursday. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)