On Sunday, the German government will convene for a closed meeting at Schloss Meseberg. The guest will be an old acquaintance: Ursula von der Leyen. Olaf Scholz had already invited the Commission President in January to talk about overcoming the energy crisis and the challenges for Europe’s competitiveness.
However, the dispute over the phasing out of internal combustion engines, instigated by the FDP shortly before the final vote, is now likely to overshadow von der Leyen’s appearance in Meseberg. In his Feature, Markus Grabitz explains how the conflict could be resolved.
Von der Leyen will then travel on to North America, first to Ottawa and then to Washington. There she will meet US President Joe Biden on Friday. The topics will be similar to those in Meseberg, as the Commission announced in the evening: It will be about “cooperation between the EU and the USA on innovations and secure supply chains for clean technologies“. Von der Leyen is thus traveling behind Olaf Scholz – the chancellor is already arriving in the US today for talks.
“Sunny weather outside, gloomy mood inside,” tweeted Ismail Ertug (S&D) after the trilogue on the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR). The parliamentary rapporteur accuses the Swedish Council Presidency of delaying the negotiations and not getting its way with the member states. A major sticking point is the expansion of the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles – it is central to the entire regulation. Lukas Scheid summarizes the state of the debate.
In her Column this week, Claire Stam looks at the eastern French town of Belfort, home of MEP Christophe Grudler (Renew). Read what Belfort has to do with French politics, nuclear energy and the upcoming trilogue on the Renewable Energy Directive at the end of our briefing.
The FDP-led part of the German government awaits a proposal from the Commission in the dispute over e-fuels. The proposal from Brussels for a compromise should provide for the use of CO2-neutral synthetic fuels in new vehicles beyond 2035, it said. If the proposal fails to materialize, Germany will abstain in the final vote in the Council on CO2-fleet legislation scheduled for Tuesday, including a phase-out of internal combustion engines in passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in 2035, according to sources close to Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
Since Italy and at least two other member states would also abstain, the informal compromise previously reached by the Council and the EU Parliament in the trilogue procedure would then fail. The FDP has been building up this threatening backdrop for several days. According to information available to Table.Media, Wissing has proposed to the Commission that the text of the law be amended so that even after 2035, vehicles with internal combustion engines may still be newly registered if it can be proven that they are only refueled with e-fuels. A special filler neck on new vehicles could ensure that this condition is met.
Originally, the trilogue result was to be voted on at ambassadorial level this Friday. However, the German government has asked for a postponement of the vote.
The SPD and the Greens in the traffic light coalition have little understanding for the FDP’s late braking maneuver. The Liberals have not yet specified their demands, according to one of the houses involved. In addition, there seems to be little understanding for European legislative processes at the political level in the FDP ministries. Green Party co-faction leader Katharina Dröge urged the FDP to abandon its blockade attitude. “I assume that the case will not come to pass and that Germany will agree to a phase-out of the internal combustion engine,” she said in an interview with Table.Media. “This is also a question of reliability vis-à-vis European partners.”
The Commission Vice President responsible for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, has repeatedly made it clear that he rejects the use of e-fuels in passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. On the one hand, the Commission is now also unlikely to have much interest in making a compromise proposal. It is of the opinion that the German government should rather agree on a line internally. With regard to the other member states, the Commission also wants to avoid the impression of getting involved in negotiations with a government partner of a member state.
On the other hand, the Commission is probably very keen to ensure that the phasing out of internal combustion vehicles and the CO2 fleet limits do not fall at the last hurdle. If the trilogue result is rejected due to opposition from the FDP, a new legislative attempt would have to be made. It would then be likely that no agreement would be reached by the end of the mandate in May 2024.
Observers see three possible avenues for a compromise that the Commission could present in the coming days. One is that there could be a “crediting system”. Under this, manufacturers would buy quantities of e-fuels on the market and feed them into the EU fuel market. In return for the quantities of CO2 saved, they would then receive credits that would count toward their CO2 fleet limits.
Secondly, a “carbon correction factor” could be introduced. This would calculate the CO2 savings achieved by the volumes of e-fuels sold. It would be credited to manufacturers according to their market shares for their CO2 fleet limits. Both options have already been examined by DG Clima in the past but have been rejected.
Thirdly, a regulation for e-fuels could be introduced in the course of the Euro 7 pollutant regulation: According to this, Euro 7 could be adapted in the future if manufacturers develop vehicles that can be fueled exclusively with e-fuels. A similar regulation was already in a draft for the Euro 7 regulation but has also been discarded in the meantime. with Stefan Braun
“Sunny weather outside, gloomy mood inside,” tweeted Ismail Ertug (S&D) on Tuesday after the trilogue on the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR). The legislative proposal is one of the few remaining dossiers in the Fit for 55 package and is intended to ensure that the framework conditions for low-emission transport are created across Europe. But negotiations are proceeding slowly. Parliamentary rapporteur Ertug accuses the Swedish Council presidency of delaying the process and failing to get its way with the member states.
It was the third round of trilogues on Tuesday. Another round is scheduled for March 27. After that, the plan was to be ready and go to the final votes in Parliament and the Council of Ministers. However, this timetable does not seem realistic at present. The differences on some points are still too great.
Ertug is prepared to go the extra mile and add more trilogue rounds if necessary. Above all, he calls for more concessions from the Council presidency. If necessary, he would also wait for the Spanish Council Presidency in the second half of the year to reach an agreement.
These are the sticking points:
The Parliament’s mandate provides for significantly higher minimum requirements for the development of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. This part is considered a core element of the entire regulation and has so far only been dealt with superficially, says Jens Gieseke, EPP shadow rapporteur. The EP mandate stipulates that the expansion obligation per newly registered EV increases progressively depending on the size of the existing EV fleet in a member state.
Parliament demands:
The Council wants 1 kW per newly registered EV without taking fleet sizes into account. Parliament also wants a hydrogen refueling station every 100 kilometers by 2027. The Council sets 2030 as the target date and wants up to 200 kilometers to be allowed between refueling stations. The negotiators are still far from reaching a compromise on both the charging infrastructure and hydrogen.
As a parliament, the Council has already been accommodated a good deal, Gieseke asserts. The Council, on the other hand, has no flexibility whatsoever, instead referring strictly to its mandate. “Now the Council presidency must show that it, too, takes the issue of infrastructure development seriously and is ready for serious negotiations.” However, it also needs more leeway from the member states to do this.
According to the shadow rapporteur for the Greens, Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg, the Council’s reluctance is also evident in the question of whether price indications at the e-charging point will be standardized. To prevent confusion for consumers, the Parliament wants uniform payment methods and price indications per kilowatt hour at all European charging points for so-called fast charging from 50 kWh. The EU Commission supports the Parliament’s demand, says Deparnay-Grunenberg. The Council is putting on the brakes and still has to coordinate with the member states.
However, the AFIR does not only concern road traffic. The aim is also to ensure that ships and aircraft are supplied with electricity when they are in port or on the ground. Until now, they have often obtained their energy from fossil fuels.
However, the obligation to build up a power supply of 90 percent of the energy demand in seaports should only apply if at least 50 ships of more than 5,000 GT enter the port – that is what the Parliament wants. The Council wants to raise the minimum to 100. Ismail Ertug says the Parliament is willing to compromise but is calling for a mandatory review by the Commission of what the impact would be of including ships of 400 GT or more. An agreement on this is pending.
The Brussels bubble loves acronyms, and today’s topic is no exception: We’re talking about the negotiations to revise the Renewable Energy Directive, or RED for short. But since that would be too simple, the negotiations are divided into five categories, RED 1, 2, 3, and so on.
Today, the focus is on RED 3. Although the name does not necessarily suggest it, the aim is to define the place of nuclear energy in the production of green hydrogen. The question now is whether hydrogen should be produced only by renewable energies or by renewable energies AND nuclear energy – with the justification that this does not cause greenhouse gas emissions.
Officially, the negotiations on Monday will be about setting sub-targets. The final trilogue is scheduled for March 29. However, both the European Parliament and the Council assume that this date will be pushed into April. As might be expected, France, in particular, is pushing: There should be “no discrimination against nuclear energy, as nuclear energy is a low-carbon energy and must be defined as such,” said a cabinet member of the Minister for the Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, recently in Paris.
Except that Germany and Spain do not necessarily agree, to put it in litotes. This could explain the cautious remarks of the cabinet member when they says that “France is not in a logic of bloc, but of dialogue to be productive.” Negotiations on the issue are at an important stage, they said. At the recent Council of Energy Ministers in Stockholm, Pannier-Runacher had spoken about this with her Spanish colleague Teresa Ribera.
On the European Parliament side, the negotiations are led by rapporteur Markus Pieper (EPP). Christophe Grudler (Renew) is also getting involved. The discreet French MEP founded a “Parliamentary Network on the Future of Nuclear Energy in Europe” in November 2021, which he chairs. The network has set itself three goals: the inclusion of nuclear energy in the European taxonomy (which has already happened), the production of carbon-free hydrogen (which is currently being attempted), and research and innovation to reduce nuclear waste.
Christophe Grudler, in Parliament since 2019, is vice coordinator for the Renew group in the ITRE committee and rapporteur for his group’s revision of the Renewable Energy Directive. And he has been a city councilor in Belfort since 2020. This is a more important point than it might seem at first glance.
Belfort is an industrial and garrison town in eastern France, about 50 kilometers southwest of Mulhouse. Companies there supply, among other things, equipment for new nuclear power plants, including the Arabelle turbines, and for the maintenance and upgrading of existing nuclear power plants.
Belfort is also the political home of Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a major figure in the Parti Socialiste and political mentor to President Emmanuel Macron. Chevènement still wields great political influence in France, and he is an advocate of the principle of national sovereignty – for which nuclear energy plays an important role.
Last April, he founded a new party called “Refondation Républicaine” (Republican Refoundation). The goal: a “revival of France, based on the recovery of independence in all areas and on the revival of nuclear energy”.
On Sunday, the German government will convene for a closed meeting at Schloss Meseberg. The guest will be an old acquaintance: Ursula von der Leyen. Olaf Scholz had already invited the Commission President in January to talk about overcoming the energy crisis and the challenges for Europe’s competitiveness.
However, the dispute over the phasing out of internal combustion engines, instigated by the FDP shortly before the final vote, is now likely to overshadow von der Leyen’s appearance in Meseberg. In his Feature, Markus Grabitz explains how the conflict could be resolved.
Von der Leyen will then travel on to North America, first to Ottawa and then to Washington. There she will meet US President Joe Biden on Friday. The topics will be similar to those in Meseberg, as the Commission announced in the evening: It will be about “cooperation between the EU and the USA on innovations and secure supply chains for clean technologies“. Von der Leyen is thus traveling behind Olaf Scholz – the chancellor is already arriving in the US today for talks.
“Sunny weather outside, gloomy mood inside,” tweeted Ismail Ertug (S&D) after the trilogue on the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR). The parliamentary rapporteur accuses the Swedish Council Presidency of delaying the negotiations and not getting its way with the member states. A major sticking point is the expansion of the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles – it is central to the entire regulation. Lukas Scheid summarizes the state of the debate.
In her Column this week, Claire Stam looks at the eastern French town of Belfort, home of MEP Christophe Grudler (Renew). Read what Belfort has to do with French politics, nuclear energy and the upcoming trilogue on the Renewable Energy Directive at the end of our briefing.
The FDP-led part of the German government awaits a proposal from the Commission in the dispute over e-fuels. The proposal from Brussels for a compromise should provide for the use of CO2-neutral synthetic fuels in new vehicles beyond 2035, it said. If the proposal fails to materialize, Germany will abstain in the final vote in the Council on CO2-fleet legislation scheduled for Tuesday, including a phase-out of internal combustion engines in passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in 2035, according to sources close to Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
Since Italy and at least two other member states would also abstain, the informal compromise previously reached by the Council and the EU Parliament in the trilogue procedure would then fail. The FDP has been building up this threatening backdrop for several days. According to information available to Table.Media, Wissing has proposed to the Commission that the text of the law be amended so that even after 2035, vehicles with internal combustion engines may still be newly registered if it can be proven that they are only refueled with e-fuels. A special filler neck on new vehicles could ensure that this condition is met.
Originally, the trilogue result was to be voted on at ambassadorial level this Friday. However, the German government has asked for a postponement of the vote.
The SPD and the Greens in the traffic light coalition have little understanding for the FDP’s late braking maneuver. The Liberals have not yet specified their demands, according to one of the houses involved. In addition, there seems to be little understanding for European legislative processes at the political level in the FDP ministries. Green Party co-faction leader Katharina Dröge urged the FDP to abandon its blockade attitude. “I assume that the case will not come to pass and that Germany will agree to a phase-out of the internal combustion engine,” she said in an interview with Table.Media. “This is also a question of reliability vis-à-vis European partners.”
The Commission Vice President responsible for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, has repeatedly made it clear that he rejects the use of e-fuels in passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. On the one hand, the Commission is now also unlikely to have much interest in making a compromise proposal. It is of the opinion that the German government should rather agree on a line internally. With regard to the other member states, the Commission also wants to avoid the impression of getting involved in negotiations with a government partner of a member state.
On the other hand, the Commission is probably very keen to ensure that the phasing out of internal combustion vehicles and the CO2 fleet limits do not fall at the last hurdle. If the trilogue result is rejected due to opposition from the FDP, a new legislative attempt would have to be made. It would then be likely that no agreement would be reached by the end of the mandate in May 2024.
Observers see three possible avenues for a compromise that the Commission could present in the coming days. One is that there could be a “crediting system”. Under this, manufacturers would buy quantities of e-fuels on the market and feed them into the EU fuel market. In return for the quantities of CO2 saved, they would then receive credits that would count toward their CO2 fleet limits.
Secondly, a “carbon correction factor” could be introduced. This would calculate the CO2 savings achieved by the volumes of e-fuels sold. It would be credited to manufacturers according to their market shares for their CO2 fleet limits. Both options have already been examined by DG Clima in the past but have been rejected.
Thirdly, a regulation for e-fuels could be introduced in the course of the Euro 7 pollutant regulation: According to this, Euro 7 could be adapted in the future if manufacturers develop vehicles that can be fueled exclusively with e-fuels. A similar regulation was already in a draft for the Euro 7 regulation but has also been discarded in the meantime. with Stefan Braun
“Sunny weather outside, gloomy mood inside,” tweeted Ismail Ertug (S&D) on Tuesday after the trilogue on the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR). The legislative proposal is one of the few remaining dossiers in the Fit for 55 package and is intended to ensure that the framework conditions for low-emission transport are created across Europe. But negotiations are proceeding slowly. Parliamentary rapporteur Ertug accuses the Swedish Council presidency of delaying the process and failing to get its way with the member states.
It was the third round of trilogues on Tuesday. Another round is scheduled for March 27. After that, the plan was to be ready and go to the final votes in Parliament and the Council of Ministers. However, this timetable does not seem realistic at present. The differences on some points are still too great.
Ertug is prepared to go the extra mile and add more trilogue rounds if necessary. Above all, he calls for more concessions from the Council presidency. If necessary, he would also wait for the Spanish Council Presidency in the second half of the year to reach an agreement.
These are the sticking points:
The Parliament’s mandate provides for significantly higher minimum requirements for the development of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. This part is considered a core element of the entire regulation and has so far only been dealt with superficially, says Jens Gieseke, EPP shadow rapporteur. The EP mandate stipulates that the expansion obligation per newly registered EV increases progressively depending on the size of the existing EV fleet in a member state.
Parliament demands:
The Council wants 1 kW per newly registered EV without taking fleet sizes into account. Parliament also wants a hydrogen refueling station every 100 kilometers by 2027. The Council sets 2030 as the target date and wants up to 200 kilometers to be allowed between refueling stations. The negotiators are still far from reaching a compromise on both the charging infrastructure and hydrogen.
As a parliament, the Council has already been accommodated a good deal, Gieseke asserts. The Council, on the other hand, has no flexibility whatsoever, instead referring strictly to its mandate. “Now the Council presidency must show that it, too, takes the issue of infrastructure development seriously and is ready for serious negotiations.” However, it also needs more leeway from the member states to do this.
According to the shadow rapporteur for the Greens, Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg, the Council’s reluctance is also evident in the question of whether price indications at the e-charging point will be standardized. To prevent confusion for consumers, the Parliament wants uniform payment methods and price indications per kilowatt hour at all European charging points for so-called fast charging from 50 kWh. The EU Commission supports the Parliament’s demand, says Deparnay-Grunenberg. The Council is putting on the brakes and still has to coordinate with the member states.
However, the AFIR does not only concern road traffic. The aim is also to ensure that ships and aircraft are supplied with electricity when they are in port or on the ground. Until now, they have often obtained their energy from fossil fuels.
However, the obligation to build up a power supply of 90 percent of the energy demand in seaports should only apply if at least 50 ships of more than 5,000 GT enter the port – that is what the Parliament wants. The Council wants to raise the minimum to 100. Ismail Ertug says the Parliament is willing to compromise but is calling for a mandatory review by the Commission of what the impact would be of including ships of 400 GT or more. An agreement on this is pending.
The Brussels bubble loves acronyms, and today’s topic is no exception: We’re talking about the negotiations to revise the Renewable Energy Directive, or RED for short. But since that would be too simple, the negotiations are divided into five categories, RED 1, 2, 3, and so on.
Today, the focus is on RED 3. Although the name does not necessarily suggest it, the aim is to define the place of nuclear energy in the production of green hydrogen. The question now is whether hydrogen should be produced only by renewable energies or by renewable energies AND nuclear energy – with the justification that this does not cause greenhouse gas emissions.
Officially, the negotiations on Monday will be about setting sub-targets. The final trilogue is scheduled for March 29. However, both the European Parliament and the Council assume that this date will be pushed into April. As might be expected, France, in particular, is pushing: There should be “no discrimination against nuclear energy, as nuclear energy is a low-carbon energy and must be defined as such,” said a cabinet member of the Minister for the Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, recently in Paris.
Except that Germany and Spain do not necessarily agree, to put it in litotes. This could explain the cautious remarks of the cabinet member when they says that “France is not in a logic of bloc, but of dialogue to be productive.” Negotiations on the issue are at an important stage, they said. At the recent Council of Energy Ministers in Stockholm, Pannier-Runacher had spoken about this with her Spanish colleague Teresa Ribera.
On the European Parliament side, the negotiations are led by rapporteur Markus Pieper (EPP). Christophe Grudler (Renew) is also getting involved. The discreet French MEP founded a “Parliamentary Network on the Future of Nuclear Energy in Europe” in November 2021, which he chairs. The network has set itself three goals: the inclusion of nuclear energy in the European taxonomy (which has already happened), the production of carbon-free hydrogen (which is currently being attempted), and research and innovation to reduce nuclear waste.
Christophe Grudler, in Parliament since 2019, is vice coordinator for the Renew group in the ITRE committee and rapporteur for his group’s revision of the Renewable Energy Directive. And he has been a city councilor in Belfort since 2020. This is a more important point than it might seem at first glance.
Belfort is an industrial and garrison town in eastern France, about 50 kilometers southwest of Mulhouse. Companies there supply, among other things, equipment for new nuclear power plants, including the Arabelle turbines, and for the maintenance and upgrading of existing nuclear power plants.
Belfort is also the political home of Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a major figure in the Parti Socialiste and political mentor to President Emmanuel Macron. Chevènement still wields great political influence in France, and he is an advocate of the principle of national sovereignty – for which nuclear energy plays an important role.
Last April, he founded a new party called “Refondation Républicaine” (Republican Refoundation). The goal: a “revival of France, based on the recovery of independence in all areas and on the revival of nuclear energy”.
