EU Energy Council

Friday 24th February 2017 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Jesse Norman)]

There will be a meeting of the Energy Council in Brussels on 27 February.

The Council will begin with an initial exchange of views on the Commission’s “clean energy for all Europeans” package published on 30 November 2016. This will include discussion of the electricity market design proposals consisting of the recast of the regulation on the internal electricity market, the recast of the directive on common rules for the internal electricity market, a regulation on risk preparedness in the electricity sector and the recast of the regulation establishing a European Union Agency for the Co-operation of Energy Regulators (ACER). The discussion will also cover the proposals for the recasts of the directives on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, energy efficiency and energy performance of buildings, and the new proposal for a regulation on governance of the Energy Union.

The Commission will then present the second state of the energy union report which was published on 1 February. The report highlights progress in 2016 taking forward the aims and objectives of the energy union and considers trends since the first state of the energy union report was published in 2015.

The presidency will provide an update on the “state of play” on a number of legislative dossiers currently under negotiation. Both the regulation concerning measures to safeguard the security of gas supply and the regulation setting a framework for energy efficiency labelling are currently the subject of trilogues with the Commission and European Parliament. Negotiation has recently commenced on the proposed legislation to amend the energy efficiency directive and that to amend the energy performance of buildings directive.

The Commission will also make a presentation on the ocean energy forum, which in November 2016 published a strategic roadmap building on European leadership in ocean energy, and the development of technologies that could meet a significant amount of Europe’s future power demand.

Finally, the Czech delegation will look ahead to the European nuclear energy forum in May 2017, an annual event hosted alternately by the Czech Republic and Slovakia bringing together all relevant stakeholders in the nuclear field, to discuss issues of mutual interest.

[HCWS498]