Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Europe is facing its second fossil fuel crisis in just a few years. This time its due to the war in the Middle East and the derived ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

As of Monday 13 April the current conflict has been ongoing for 44 days. According to the Commission, the Union’s bill for fossil fuel import increased by over EUR 22 billion in the 44 days, without any additional fuel being bought. This is the price of Europe’s energy dependence. Europe imported 98 percent of all oil and gas used in Member States in 2022. It is clear, Europe is extremely vulnerable to external shocks in the global market for energy. Europe was finding itself in the same situation in 2022 when Russian unlawfully invaded Ukraine.

However, not only is Europe’s dependence on third countries a great security risk, but it is also putting its competitiveness at risk. As stated by both Draghi and Letta, electricity prices in Europe remain 2-3 times higher than in the US, while the electricity retail prices in 2024 were, 2.2 times higher than in the US and twice those in China. Without ensuring lower energy prices in Europe, we risk losing strategically important industry and quality jobs to strategic rivals. This is an immense security risk for Europe. Furthermore, the high and volatile energy prices are extremely challenging to many European citizens. In 2024, 9.2 percent of Europeans could not keep their home adequately warm.

Europe is not only facing an energy crisis and decreasing competitiveness, but also a global climate crisis that is worsening. We have agreed to reduce 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 90 percent by 2040. Electrification and further deployment of renewables is key to reach these targets.

One major bottleneck to solve the above-mentioned challenges is the insufficient capacity on Europe’s electricity grids and the slow build-out of renewable energy. Today, it takes up to nine years to get the necessary permitting for a renewable energy project and on average five years for transmission grids. This is while we know that the only way to reduce Europe’s energy independence and tackle the climate crisis is by ensuring more clean home-grown energy and the built-out of grid infrastructure to enable electrification. Therefore, the Commission proposal on acceleration of permit-granting procedures is very welcome and a matter of great urgency.

In general, the draft report agrees with the Commission proposal to accelerate permitting procedure without risking environmental protection. The permitting procedures for both the deployment of renewables and grid infrastructure must be adapted to avoid unnecessary delays where the environmental impact is minimal or non-existing, this goes for small-scale projects and repowering of existing projects. Therefore, the draft report includes an exemption to the assessment mandated under Directive 2000/60/EC for the deployment of electricity grids, provided that mitigation measures constitute an inherent component of the project. The targeted amendments to the permit-granting procedures must be done in combination with ambitious deadlines that ensures national permitting authorities and system operators are treating permit applications with the necessary urgency, why the draft report also supports the introduction of overriding public interest and tacit approval outside renewable acceleration areas. To ensure the most cost-efficient use of resources, the legally binding Energy Efficiency First principle must be applied consistently to grid infrastructure planning to maximise the use of existing grid infrastructure.

However, strict deadlines and targeted amendments to environmental assessments is not enough to sufficiently accelerate permitting procedures. Other big barriers causing the delay in permitting procedures must be tackled as well. One of these barriers is the lack of public acceptance for deploying renewable energy projects across Europe which can result in long litigation procedures. Therefore, the draft report improves the Commission proposal ensuring an effective and proper engagement of local communities and sets in place equitable benefit-sharing measures.

The draft report also tackles the issues of insufficient digitalisation in permit-granting procedures and effective use of digital tools throughout the process. Making the permitting procedures digital by default and ensuring all relevant actors have access to the necessary information and the procedures is key to avoid unnecessary time wasted in inefficient procedures. Another underlying problem is the lack of adequate staffing in national permitting authorities. This is a challenge of such scale it must be prioritised by relevant Union funding as well as other measures that ensures the applicable deadlines are kept, and the process is cost-efficient for both project developers and system operators.