In the over 400 amendments tabled by MEPs on the European Parliament’s Industry (ITRE) and International Trade (INTA) committees and obtained by Agence Europe on Thursday 24 July, prior to their official publication, the S&D, Renew Europe and Greens/EFA groups are in favour of a complete ban on all Russian gas supply contracts from 1 January 2027. The European Commission, for its part, proposed that this definitive ban should take effect on 1 January 2028 (see EUROPE 13661/5).
The main INTA rapporteur, Inese Vaidere (EPP, Latvian), along with other EPP members, also mentions this earlier deadline, but this is not the case for the EPP ITRE rapporteur, Andrea Wechsler (German). Also in the committee, the rapporteur for The Left, Hanna Gedin (Swedish), supports the date of 1 January 2027.
In addition, the ITRE rapporteurs for the EPP, S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and The Left reject the principle of the emergency clause allowing the Commission to reverse the ban on the regulation in the event of “sudden and significant developments which seriously threaten the security of supply” of one or more Member States.
The ECR rapporteur for ITRE, Daniel Obajtek (Polish), does not delete this clause, but strengthens the Commission’s proposal by referring to “cases of unforeseeable exceptional urgency threatening immediate security of supply for which there is no alternative in one or more Member States”.
Among the amendments proposed by the Patriots for Europe, the legal basis of the text proposed by the Commission is called into question. In particular, they stress that this regulation cannot affect the right of Member States to determine the conditions for exploiting their energy resources, their choice between different energy sources and the general structure of their energy supply.
To see the amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/i0h ; https://aeur.eu/f/i0i ; https://aeur.eu/f/i0j (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)