While co-legislators were hoping to reach conclusions on the negotiations to extend and revise the regulation on gas storage (see EUROPE 13640/19) on Tuesday 3 June, a third session of inter-institutional negotiations has been scheduled for 24 June.
According to three sources, while discussions have moved quickly in the right direction, the Parliament and the EU Council still have to agree on possible deviations from the annual target for filling gas tanks.
The Council is adamant about maintaining a 90% target, but could reasonably follow Parliament’s proposal to slightly revise the percentages of possible deviations from this target.
Parliament is also pushing for the text to adopt strong language on the role of Russian gas, while the Council has questioned this mention in the body of the regulation at a time when legislative proposals from the European Commission for definitively abandoning Russian fossil fuels (see EUROPE 13634/1) are due to be presented later this month.
At least one further technical meeting will be held before the political negotiations on 24 June, and the Committee of Ambassadors of the Member States to the EU (Coreper) will return to the subject on 11 and 13 June. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)