Although it was not on the formal agenda of the ministerial meeting of European energy ministers in Valladolid on Tuesday 11 and Wednesday 12 July (see other news), the reform of the electricity market was the subject of much attention and questioning. As agreement has not yet been reached on the text (see EUROPE 13213/9), the Member States have been invited by the Spanish Presidency to continue negotiations in the coming days. It still hopes that an agreement can be reached with Parliament – which has already reached a provisional agreement in the ITRE Committee (see EUROPE 13217/11) – before the end of the year.
“On the fringes of the meeting, there is an unnamed subject (elephant in the room). This is the concept of the European electricity market”, said Sven Giegold, German State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, on his arrival at the second day of the informal meeting of energy ministers.
“So the big question is: how can we better integrate our electricity market to improve the conditions for the new investment we urgently need? We want to boost cheap and affordable renewable energy for consumers, including private individuals and businesses”, he continued.
The Czech minister, Jozef Síkela, also indicated that he had spent most of the breaks and the evening of Tuesday discussing the reform of the electricity market with his colleagues.
“I firmly believe that we cannot focus on just one technology, that we cannot divide the discussions on how to support renewables and how to support nuclear (see other news)”, he told a handful of journalists. “I firmly believe that we need to have a balance and a technology-neutral approach to support all carbon-free technologies in order to meet the 2050 targets”.
On this subject, the German Secretary of State mentioned that a clear compromise could not be worked out by France and Germany. “The days when France and Germany reached an agreement and everyone was happy are over, and so much the better. Europe needs to be run collectively, and that's what we’re doing”.
When questioned at length on the subject, the Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, who chaired the meeting, said that she hoped an agreement could still be reached before the summer, but that if this was not possible, it would have to wait until September.
“We intend to close this file before Christmas. Everyone shares the same objective. The question is how we manage the apparently contradictory approaches that the Member States want to see reflected in the text”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)