The Member States’ ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) once more discussed the gas package (a directive and a regulation) on Wednesday 22 March (see EUROPE 13144/2). Although there is agreement over a large part of the text, some points remain unresolved and will have to be debated again, with a view to reaching a political agreement in principle (‘general approach’) on Tuesday 28 March at the ‘Energy’ Council.
In particular, the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council has submitted a new compromise proposal on public intervention in pricing for the delivery of natural gas in times of crisis, based on the directive (EU) 2019/944 upon which the electricity market review proposal is based (see EUROPE 13141/1).
According to the Swedish proposal, the same principle as in the European Commission’s proposal for the electricity market could be applied to the gas market and would target both households and small and medium-sized enterprises.
This means that if a natural gas price crisis is declared under specific conditions, Member States may apply targeted public interventions, again under certain conditions, which are aligned with those applicable to regulated electricity prices as set out in Directive (EU) 2019/944 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity.
The representatives of the Member States have not yet been able to agree on this new point.
The same applies to Article 8a allowing low-carbon fuels and hydrogen to contribute to decarbonisation targets (see EUROPE 13144/2).
These provisions will be further discussed at the next Coreper meeting, which is scheduled for Friday 24 March. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)