Parliament must have more say on spending / EPP supports 45% renewables and higher efficiency target, subject to conditions


"The proposal is going in the right direction, but we need to examine it more closely. The devil is in the details and I am very sceptical about some of the concrete proposals," said the environmental spokesperson of the largest group in the European Parliament, the EPP (Christian Democrats), Dr. Peter Liese (also rapporteur on the ETS), with regard to the European Commission's RePowerEU proposal. The Commission proposes to take 250 million allowances from the reserve and use them to make investments to replace Russian gas.

"I think this is a good idea. Auctioning will dampen the price in this difficult period without jeopardizing the climate target and it will free up a lot of money for investments. However, I find it completely unacceptable that the Commission wants to put the money into the RRF. Parliament has practically no say in this, and cross-border European projects are not being funded. I makes sense to put the money into the innovation fund in the emissions trading system. We as EPP support the proposal to reach 45% renewable energy in 2030. Renewable energy and energy efficiency are the answer to the crisis and we have to do everything now, including simplified permitting procedures. I personally also support a higher target for energy efficiency. For my colleagues, it is important that this does not jeopardize the decarbonisation of industry, which after all needs more energy to begin with, and that the storage of renewable energies, which we urgently need, is not torpedoed," said Liese.