Representatives of the main political groups in the European Parliament meeting on Monday 27 March generally welcomed the legislative proposal to reform price formation in the European electricity market, including provisions to protect consumers from volatile tariffs and to stimulate electricity production from renewable energy sources (see EUROPE 13141/1).
In a discussion in the Energy Committee (ITRE), Graça Carvalho (EPP, Portuguese) said she was “quite satisfied” with the proposal, which introduces long-term measures without affecting the short-term markets that currently determine market prices. Dan Nica (S&D, Romanian) called for a reform that provides “predictability and clarity” for consumers and investors. Thanking the Commission for this “difficult work”, Morten Petersen (Renew Europe, Danish) said there was a need for a “sincere” discussion on the issues to be resolved in order to find the balance between short and long term measures and provisions to deal with emergencies or to reform the market structure. For the Greens/EFA group, Germany’s Heinrike Hahn wanted the reform to address the phenomenon of energy poverty.
In a more nuanced comment, Grzegorz Józef Tobiszowski (ECR, Polish) warned against creating new dependencies on countries that extract critical raw materials or produce goods containing these raw materials that are essential for ‘clean’ energy production. Marc Botenga (The Left, Belgian) criticised the fact that the Commission is not changing “the basic mechanism”, whereby gas ultimately determines the price of electricity in the EU.
The reform on the table, which is likely to be the last major legislative initiative of the Commission’s energy mandate, is “targeted”, in particular so that it can be negotiated and adopted before the European elections in May 2024, noted EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson. She noted the main aims of the proposal: to reduce “over-dependence” on short-term markets and to introduce the necessary incentives for decarbonisation of electricity production, bearing in mind that by 2030 the target is an average share of renewable sources of 69% of total electricity production (of which 592 megawatts from solar energy and 510 megawatts from wind energy).
Asked by Ms Carvalho and Niels Fuglsang (S&D, Danish) why the proposal did not mention cross-border interconnections, the Commissioner replied that the European Recovery Plan, the TEN-T network and the ‘Connecting Europe Facility’ were more appropriate for infrastructure development. She provided assurances that in allocating financial aid, the Commission “will give preference to electricity”.
Finally, Pernille Weiss (EPP, Danish) questioned the need to set up regional trading platforms (‘virtual hubs’). The Nordic example has proven successful in providing liquidity to the market, Ms Simson countered. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)