Debate: Trans-European energy infrastructure
Date: TUESDAY, 5 APRIL 2022
Speaker: Zdzisław Krasnodębski
Country: Greece
Language: EN

And secondly, I have appreciated the pragmatic and efficient approach of the Slovenian Presidency. Thank you, Madam Ambassador Tamara Weingerl—Požar, you contributed very much to this agreement. And last but not least, I have to thank Commissioner Simson and your teams of Commissioner Simson for availability of advice and all expertise. I wanted to say that it is the first revision of TEN—E policy and PCI guidelines since its creation in 2013. And we have made a number of substantive changes in the regulation – I just mentioned the main. First of all, the governance process has been strengthened with a better stakeholder involvement. We discussed this very intensely about governance but it was changed. The second, the most important change is the mandatory sustainability criteria that have been introduced for all types of project. We have also extended the scope of the regulation in order to include some projects with third countries. These projects of mutual interest would have to demonstrate that they bring benefits for the Union and not for a single Member State. New categories of projects include hydrogen infrastructures, certain types of electrolysers, as well as smart gas grids to integrate low-carbon gases into existing gas network. Concerning the electricity, there are two major changes. The eligibility criteria for smart electricity grids have been simplified to enable more projects of common interest in that field. And we have introduced an amendment allowing new sub-category of projects to apply for PCI status and financing in the regions with low levels of offshore renewable electricity. The projects will consist of direct connections of the offshore wind farms to the national power systems in so-called radial form. This is an important addition for Member States and sea basins where offshore wind farms are at the planning stage. The final text of the revised regulation is a result of bargaining based on the Commission’s proposal, which, as you know, excluded from the start – and this is, I think, very important – further support for gas infrastructure in the framework of projects of common interest. And here I must say, in my draft report, published in March last year, I warned that the Commission may be over-optimistic in estimations of the level of connectivity and supply resilience for these natural gas networks, and that probably there are not yet enough interconnections in a lot of the smaller gas markets, for example in south—east Europe, and connectivity still poses a problem between some Member States and the rest of Europe. In the draft report adopted by the ITRE Committee we have included a definition of ‘security of supply’, meaning also ‘energy security’, and we have stated that it cannot be achieved without reducing strategic energy dependencies, it was very important. And we know that in the tragic reality of war in Europe and the dramatically low level of the Union’s energy security proves that, since years, the EU has made serious mistakes in assessing the needs, including in terms of trans-European energy infrastructure. And I think that the Commission now seems to recognise it and it’s probably too late to reopen the TEN—E Regulation but we understand that the Commission is already preparing an instrument to foster gas-network interconnection and LNG terminals in a desperate attempt to reduce the Union’s dependence on Russian imports.