Javi Lopez (S&D, ES) will be the rapporteur for the revision of the Air Quality Directive in the ENVI Committee. The shadow rapporteurs for the other political groups are listed in the official page. For more information, please contact Irene di Padua.
The consolidated text of the agreement reached in December on the EU ETS, CBAM and the Social Climate Fund is due to be presented to the Council in February, before being put to a vote in the European Parliament at the plenary session in March. For more information, contact Ennio Prizzi.
The negotiations on the revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) are coming to an end. The next technical meeting will be held on 17 February and the last political trilogue is expected on 9 March when a deal is likely to be reached. For more information, please contact Irene di Padua.
In view of the meeting of the WP on Tax Questions on 10 November, the Czech Presidency published a compromise text covering the Energy Taxation Directive. The document specifies that Member States will be able to grant tax exemptions or reductions to nuclear electricity (in addition to wind, solar, etc.). It shows that there are still questions about how to tax hydrogen used in fuel cells – several options are being considered. The levels of taxation are left in square brackets at this stage, since the Presidency believes that they should be decided at the ministerial level. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.
The Czech Presidency has announced that a provisional political agreement has been reached on the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) between the Council and the European Parliament. Under the deal, there would be an emission reduction target of 40% compared to 2005 for non-ETS sectors. More details are expected to follow. For more information, please contact Daniel Reinemann.
On 8 November, we celebrated the European Bioenergy Day, as part of the campaign. Besides providing information about bioenergy, the campaign highlights success stories of the Member States and celebrates national bioenergy days, which indicate the day on which the country could rely on bioenergy only for the rest of 2022, if bioenergy were used continuously. If you want to know more about the campaign and/or are interested in contributing to the national success stories, please contact Maija Lepistö.
A new emergency meeting of the Energy Council is expected in November, with the aim of adopting a legislative proposal on capping gas prices. The European Commission would present an urgent legislative package that will be first discussed at the EU summit on 20-21 October, then at the Energy Council on 25 October. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.
On 10 October, the second trilogue on the EU ETS took place. Three major crises have been addressed: mitigating energy prices, stopping the financing of Russian aggression in Ukraine and maintaining the climate ambition for 2030. An agreement was reached on the steel benchmark and indirect cost compensation. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.
The Commission hosted the 2022 Bioeconomy Conference, both live in Brussels and online. During the 2-day event, there were robust discussions on how biomass can be used, promoted, can replace fossil fuels, and on the existing limits and challenges to expanding the bioeconomy. Most of the sessions are also available online through Vimeo. For more information, please contact Daniel Reinemann.
The European Commission published a Proposal for a Council Regulation on an emergency intervention to address high energy price. The proposal includes the application a revenue cap that, in the intention of the Commission, seeks to avoid “hampering incentives in investments in flexible generation technologies, and the production of electricity from sources that directly compete with natural gas and gas-fired power plants”. The Secretariat drafted a position paper which calls to consider the special role of bioenergy plants when introducing a mechanism for skimming off additional revenues. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.
