Revision of the TEN-E Regulation guidelines

Key points

• The EESC is in favour of adapting European rules on the trans-European energy networks (TEN-E) to the objectives of the Green Deal for a "clean, affordable and secure energy supply". It calls for the proposed legal basis for the Regulation to be supplemented by an explicit reference to Article 194 TFEU.
• The Committee calls for the Regulation to fit more clearly into the process of integrating the energy system in order to promote all decarbonised forms of energy, and for any form of break-up to be made impossible. The EESC calls on the Commission, the Council and the Parliament to promote carbon-free energy sources, while respecting technological neutrality, and would like to see projects set up to create the conditions needed to pave the way for an era of hydrogen and fusion.
• The EESC calls for priority to be given to innovation and the design of energy networks aimed at reducing transport-related energy losses and, where offshore wind is concerned, to radial connection projects. The EESC calls for projects concerning natural gas transmission infrastructure not to be excluded from the Regulation's selection criteria for projects of common interest or projects of mutual interest.
• The EESC calls for an explicit reference to the Community objectives of providing energy supplies to all communities at an affordable price and ensuring a "high level of quality, safety, equal treatment and the promotion of universal access and of user rights".
• The EESC calls for the Commission's use of delegated acts to be kept to the absolute minimum and for multi-actor governance to be implemented. The EESC suggests that the Regulation establish Community responsibility for the financing of projects of common interest (PCI) by combining financing methods without ranking them in terms of priority.
• The EESC calls on the Commission to study the possibility of a trans-European operator of extra-high-voltage electricity transmission networks, which would be both integrated and decentralised.