Energy Union starts to take shape

The European Union’s (EU) ambitious project to forge an ‘Energy Union’, facilitating free and fair energy trades across the EU’s 28 member states, is starting to take shape, reports Keith Nuthall. Key motions have been approved in the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee and also the EU Council of Ministers – the EU’s co-legislators that will have to approve the detailed legislation that will give form to the Energy Union’s principles.

This legislation will start to be tabled in 2016, but the European Parliament Committee has given its thoughts on how to proceed – stances that were to be tested at a 15 December 2015 meeting of the parliament’s plenary.

The Committee, which is leading the assembly’s response to the Energy Union proposals, has approved a report saying that member state sovereignty over energy policies needs to be trimmed, so that resulting diversity in supply ‘must not represent a barrier to the single market’. As a result, the Committee said that member states supporting fracking need to take account of concerns amongst some countries to avoid friction over developing this oil and gas resource. ‘Member states that intend to pursue hydraulic fracturing [should] respect the European Commission’s recommendation setting out minimum principles governing the exploration and production of hydrocarbons (such as shale gas) using high volume hydraulic fracturing,’ said the Committee report.

Meanwhile, in a communication (policy paper) on how the Energy Union should be governed, the Council said that member states should craft 2021–2030 national plans on how they will implement the scheme’s policies and legislation over these years.

This will include amendments to the EU’s security of gas supply regulation, which will be discussed and may be approved in 2016, strengthening investment and commitments on trading gas across the EU. It will also include a revision of the Commission’s decision on intergovernmental agreements on gas supplies by member states to ensure they are compatible with EU free and fair trading legislation before being struck.