Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) were due to continue discussions on Wednesday 17 May on the adoption of the Renewable Energy Directive (as well as the ReFuel initiative for aviation), on which the EU Council and the European Parliament had reached a provisional agreement on 30 March (see EUROPE 13153/1). However, these discussions were cancelled and postponed to a later date.
“Sad that we have to remove such important topics from today’s Coreper I agenda”, said Austrian Ambassador Gregor Schusterschitz on Twitter the same day. “A simple truth: only renewables are renewable”.
The postponement came as a “surprise” to several member states who are “speculating” that several pro-nuclear countries, including France, would like to block the agreement, particularly regarding the provision on the inclusion, under certain conditions, of low-carbon hydrogen (see EUROPE 13131/6).
“They got what they wanted and now, at the last minute, they don’t want it anymore”, a diplomatic source told EUROPE.
While some are concerned about a scenario similar to that of Germany, which opposed the provisional agreement reached on CO2 emission standards for new vehicles, this source considers that this “blockage” is not taking place at the same stage of the directive’s adoption procedure, but that France could “draw inspiration from the dynamic launched by Germany”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)