The EU Parliament supports the relaxation of gas storage regulations
The European Parliament voted Thursday to loosen the EU's regulations on gas storage. It agreed with member states who were concerned that the targets could lead to an increase in energy prices.
In 2022, the EU introduced its gas storage regulations to ensure that EU countries have a buffer during winter. This was after Russia had cut off gas deliveries in response to its invasion of Ukraine. The resultant spike in gas prices across Europe was largely due.
Last month, governments supported plans to relax the rules in order to avoid a price spike caused by the requirement that storage be filled to 90% by November 1. This was because they were concerned the deadline to reach 90% by this date would cause prices to rise.
The European Parliament supported the lowering of the filling goal to 83% on Thursday and allowed countries to achieve it anytime between October 1 and December 1.
The lawmakers also said that countries should be allowed to depart from the 83% target by four percentage points in the event of adverse market conditions such as high gasoline prices.
The vote on Thursday increases the chances that the EU's targets will be relaxed ahead of the winter.
The changes will be applied to the EU storage-filling target for 2026-2027. If approved within the next few weeks, the changes would also apply to the November 2018 target.
Now, the EU and the Parliament will negotiate the final rules with a view to approving the deal by July.
The EU's negotiating position is similar with the changes that were backed on Thursday by the Parliament, where countries are seeking to reduce the target of 90% by 10 percentage points in the event of unfavourable market conditions.
The benchmark EU gas price has fallen steadily since February. It reached a low of nearly nine months last month due to fears about the economic impact of President Donald Trump's tariff war with the United States, and the desire to relax Europe's storage obligations. (Reporting and editing by David Evans; Kate Abnett)
(source: Reuters)
