The Member States’ representatives to the EU (Coreper) will meet on Friday 22 September to prepare for the third session of interinstitutional negotiations with the European Parliament on 28 September on the revision of the gas package regulation, as a new European framework for decarbonising gas markets and promoting hydrogen.
The most recent inter-institutional negotiations were held on 18 July (see EUROPE 13224/16). This third negotiating session will focus on demand aggregation, security of supply, biomethane and diversification of gas supply.
Demand aggregation
While the Parliament is calling for an instrument “with sufficient powers” to enable the Commission to act effectively on demand aggregation, particularly in crisis situations (as with joint gas purchases via AggregateEU - see other news item), the Member States are questioning such an instrument set up on a permanent basis.
The Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU is proposing to find a compromise while respecting several conditions, such as voluntary participation in the mechanism, but also the exclusion of hydrogen initially, before the hydrogen market reaches maturity.
It would also like to see a precise definition of any potential obligations imposed on gas companies and compliance with competition law.
Only Energy Community countries would be allowed to participate in demand aggregation and provision would be made for restrictions on the supply of natural gas, including LNG, from Russia or Belarus.
Finally, the European Commission would be invited to review the mechanism by 2030.
However, Parliament could ask to explore a mandatory element of this mechanism.
Security of supply
With regard to security of supply, the Spanish Presidency intends to inform the Parliament of the Member States’ strong preference for a future global revision of the regulation on security of gas supply, accompanied by an impact assessment, rather than a re-examination within the framework of these inter-institutional negotiations.
Secondly, the Presidency proposes to analyse the possibilities for a compromise on the specific default solidarity provisions in cases where Member States have not signed bilateral agreements.
Although the Member States have undertaken to do their utmost to ensure solidarity when it comes to gas pipelines or LNG, the legal obligation would not be extended to LNG facilities, says the Presidency document, “because the responsibilities involved and its practical implementation are unclear”.
Finally, critical gas volumes for electricity would not be included in the solidarity for protected customers.
On this sensitive issue for the EU Council, the Presidency is asking the Member States’ ambassadors (Coreper) for advice on possible flexibilities or alternative solutions in order to find a compromise with Parliament.
Biomethane
In order to find a compromise on the EU objective for biomethane, the Presidency suggests introducing “recitals” specifying that the regulation supports the achievement of an annual production of biomethane of 35 billion m³ by 2030, but there would in fact be no mention of an “EU objective”.
So there would simply be a reference to the Commission staff working document accompanying the REPowerEU plan, in which the Commission states that, in order to reduce dependence on Russian gas, the EU must increase biomethane production to 35 billion cubic metres by 2030.
Diversifying gas supplies
With regard to diversifying supply and reducing dependence on Russia, the three institutions agree on the need for “a strong and legally sound formulation that will stand the test of time”.
The revised articles state that measures such as limiting supply or advance provision of capacity in gas networks and LNG facilities may be taken to “protect the essential security interests” of Member States and the Union.
To view the 4-column document: https://aeur.eu/f/8ol (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)