Proposed by the Commission at the end of 2025 (see EUROPE 13770/4), the package of measures regarding EU energy grids “is now more necessary than ever”, said European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jørgensen on Wednesday 13 May at the end of an informal EU Council meeting in Cyprus. Echoing the Cypriot minister, Michael Damianos, the Danish Social Democrat said he hoped the EU27 would reach an agreement on this reform by the next meeting of energy ministers scheduled for 26 June in Luxembourg.
“We need better planning possibilities for our grid infrastructures in Europe; better interconnections [...]. We need them to be able to deploy renewable energies as rapidly as necessary [...], to fundamentally reform permitting rules, [...] and to have better cost-sharing rules [...]”, Mr Jørgensen enumerated. “All of these issues are on the table”, he further emphasised.
However, negotiations among the countries appear arduous (see EUROPE 13829/13). On the sidelines of the informal EU Council meeting, France, Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria and Finland voiced criticism regarding the content of this ’Grids Package’. The five countries specifically oppose the idea of the Commission taking charge of and centralising electricity grid planning.
In their view, this approach risks leading to interconnections that are poorly aligned to national and regional needs, creating under-utilised infrastructure and driving up prices. On 8 May, Sweden went so far as to suspend the replacement of electricity cables linking it to Denmark in protest against this legislative package. (Original version in French by Clément Solal)