The Member States’ ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) continued their discussions, on Friday 17 March, on the ‘gas’ package (a directive and a regulation) with a view to agreeing a political agreement in principle (‘general approach’) at the EU ‘Energy’ Council on Tuesday 28 March.
While convergence was reached on a large part of the legislative package on Friday, some points remain unresolved, according to our information. The Swedish Presidency of the EU Council will consult Member States bilaterally and submit a new compromise with some changes at the next Coreper meeting next week.
Earlier in the week, the Parliament had given the green light to start interinstitutional negotiations on this legislative package once the Member States have adopted their negotiating positions (see EUROPE 13142/3).
On the EU Council side, discussions continued, among other things, on the controversial subject of the inclusion of low-carbon hydrogen - which can be produced in particular from nuclear electricity - in the renewable energy targets (see EUROPE 13124/1).
In the Swedish Presidency’s compromise proposal on the directive, an article has in fact been added to allow low-carbon gas to contribute to the objectives of the Renewable Energy Directive (Article 8a), as requested by some countries, such as France, Poland and the Czech Republic (see EUROPE 13112/8). This article, however, is opposed by several Member States, such as Germany, Austria and Luxembourg (see other news). It has therefore been kept in square brackets in the text until now.
In addition, a number of terms have been defined or redefined in the directive, such as those related to ‘low carbon’, in order to address the concerns of Member States that the previous definitions lacked precision regarding the 70% greenhouse gas reduction threshold. A comparator for fossil fuels was then added.
See the Swedish compromise proposal on the proposed directive: https://aeur.eu/f/5w4
On the compromise proposal for the regulation, a new exceptional provision has been introduced to allow Member States to take measures to temporarily limit the initial offers of capacity by a single network user at entry points and LNG terminals for deliveries from Russia and Belarus (Articles 5 and 6).
The distinction between tariff reductions for renewable and low-carbon gases - 100 and 75% respectively - has been maintained. However, national regulatory authorities have the possibility not to apply these reductions or to reduce them (Article 16).
In the context of resolving cross-border disputes concerning hydrogen mixtures containing up to 2% by volume in the natural gas system, the national regulatory authority of one of the Member States concerned may unilaterally decide not to pursue the dispute resolution procedure (Article 19).
See the Swedish compromise proposal on the proposed regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/5w5 (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)