The European Parliament has delayed a planned vote so as to approve new EU renewable targets as France and other countries went on to lodge a last-minute opposition to the law in the week ending May 20, as per an internal email communication seen by Reuters.
It is well to be noted that the vote in the parliament’s energy committee was due to take place on May 23, but as per the email, it has been postponed till June, and there is no specific date that has come out.
The fact is that the EU is attempting to go ahead with the finalisation of the climate agenda, which is going to be a law that will have a binding objective to get 42.5% of the energy from renewable sources by this decade’s end. However, this bill has run into resistance, and it’s a late one. The EU country diplomats were due to give approval to the law; however, the discussion got shelved because France, as well as some other nations, said that they were not going to support it.
The parliament was due to hold the first vote on May 23, followed by a final vote, which would have happened in July. This delay is thereby going to risk the approval of the policy by September, post-summer break of the EU assembly. It is important to note that the EU parliaments and EU countries approval was supposed to be a mere formality after the negotiators agreed to what was supposed to be a final deal at the beginning of the year.
France was not that happy with the final result and was looking for more recognition in the law pertaining to low-carbon energy. Issue was that the rules discriminated against the hydrogen that was produced by nuclear power by not allowing nations to count this low-carbon fuel for the renewable fuel targets for the industry. Other nations, such as Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania, were also not pleased with the rules due to a range of reasons, such as some opining that the aim was overly ambitious. As per a spokesperson from Sweden, the talks were underway to ensure that there was a resolution to the dispute.
That said, some other countries are impatient, as some diplomats put this episode as a surprise holdup of a main tool of the EU bloc to fight climate change. One of the EU diplomats went on to say that the level of frustration is indeed very high, as France always asks for more.