At the ‘Energy’ Council on Tuesday 15 October, the European energy ministers discussed the continuation of the REPowerEU strategy, initiated following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
On their arrival at the EU Council, several ministers regretted that the EU was still dependent on Russian fossil fuel supplies.
“After two and a half years, we can see that REPowerEU is not producing sufficient results, and Russian energy imports are increasing. This is a bad sign, and we need to do something about it”, said Poland’s Secretary of State for Energy, Krzysztof Bolesta.
According to the recent State of the Energy Union Report (see EUROPE 13480/2), the EU still imports 18% of Russian gas (pipeline and LNG).
Although the amount of natural gas imported from Russia by pipeline began to decline in the summer of 2021, the volumes of Russian LNG delivered to European LNG terminals have not been affected.
Traceability of Russian LNG. In response, several Member States have put forward initiatives, such as Belgium, supported by Finland, which called on the EU Council to adopt a coordinated implementation of the EU measures adopted as part of the 14th package of sanctions against Russia (see EUROPE 13438/3) to ban Russian LNG reloading services on EU territory for transhipment purposes.
This approach is necessary, according to the Belgian Energy Minister, Tinne van der Straeten, in order “to support LNG-importing Member States so that sanctions are effectively put in place to stop Russia fuelling its war machine”.
European Hydrogen Bank. Another point on the agenda supported by France, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia concerned opening up the European Hydrogen Bank’s auctions, currently aimed at renewable hydrogen, to “all low-carbon hydrogen technologies”, once the delegated act on low-carbon hydrogen is adopted (see EUROPE 13492/14).
These countries consider that, in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the “renewable nature” of hydrogen is irrelevant. “Renewable hydrogen and low-carbon hydrogen must achieve at least a 70% reduction in greenhouse gases, as required by EU legislation, and their contribution is therefore equal”, they point out in an information note.
On this point, the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, indicated that it was up to the new European Commission to decide whether or not the European Hydrogen Bank could open up to low-carbon hydrogen projects.
However, she pointed out that if low-carbon hydrogen produced using fossil fuels from CO2 capture and storage technologies were to be included in projects supported by the Bank, the auction criteria would have to be adapted to take account of the issue of security of gas supply and “the need to ensure a level playing field between hydrogen technologies with different production costs”.
The European energy ministers also discussed the implementation of the ‘Fit for 55’ package and energy aid to Ukraine (see EUROPE 13486/1). (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)