“Dear chair, honourable members, thank you very much for this opportunity to participate in this exchange. I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur for her excellent draft report, Grid expansion, reinforcement, and modernization are at the crossroads of the many measures needed to achieve affordable, secure and decarbonized energy. This will require very high investments in grids, as mentioned by the rapporteur, and we need to find ways of realizing them without overburdening the consumers or the member states budgets. In this context, we welcome very much that the draft report acknowledges the Ten-e and the Connecting Europe Facility for energy as powerful tools to strengthen our cross-border infrastructure in Europe. Baltic synchronization is a powerful example as well of what can be achieved thanks to such support. The draft report also acknowledges and highlights the EU Grid Action Plan as an important stepping stone for further action, and it also aligns very well with the envisaged scope of the upcoming grid package announced recently by the Commission, in particular as concerns the need for simplified EU rules for grids, improved cross-border planning and fair cost sharing mechanisms. And we need that to make sure that the very high investments the investment needs are addressed in the most efficient, coordinated manner in line with our common priorities. The report mentions accelerated permitting, strengthened distribution level planning, more digitalisation and innovation. All very good things. I would also add the importance of the supply chains and EU manufacturing of grids and the needed equipment, as was mentioned by by some speakers. And finally, we agree on the importance to address increasing grid connection queues and support member States on in shortening connection times, as well as improving hosting capacity through better utilisation of the existing grids. The Commission stands ready to support you in this process and is looking forward to the final version of the report, which will be a very timely input to the European Greens package. Thank you very much.”
Energy transition (state support) · EU policy on permitting for renewable energy projects