EP APPROVES AGREEMENT TO ADD ENERGY MEASURES TO NATIONAL RECOVERY PLANS
On 14 February, the Plenary of the European Parliament approved the agreement to include REPowerEU measures in Member States recovery and resilience plans, with the aim to be more independent from Russian fossil fuels and speed up the green transition. The deal which was reached with the Council in December 2022, will mandate Member States that seek additional funds through an amended recovery and resilience plan to include measures to save energy, produce clean energy and to diversify supplies. The new rules will cover measures retroactively from 1 February 2022.
Parliament secured that €8 billion, from the additional 20 billion in grants proposed by the Commission, will come from an earlier auctioning of national emission allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System. However, revenues raised under the EU ETS cannot be used for fossil fuel investments. The remaining €12 billion will instead be taken from the Innovation Fund. Parliament also ensured that Member States will have to allocate at least 30% of their spending under REPowerEU to either multi-country measures, addressing bottlenecks in energy transmission, distribution, and storage or to increase cross-borders flows.
The new rules concerning REPowerEU measures in national recovery plans enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Journal of the EU.
Source: European Parliament