Earlier this year, however, rules were swept into EU-U.S. trade talks after President Donald Trump demanded Europe swallow billions more in American energy. Industry groups are now arguing that the law must be redone to ease that consumption.
“The EU is clearly keen to buy more American LNG,” said François-Régis Mouton, the European director of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers. “But then at the same time, they put in place a methane emission regulation that totally jeopardizes this. We’re doing everything to reopen the methane regulation.”
Ahead of Monday’s energy ministers’ meeting, EU capitals have been preparing a consensus document that presses the European Commission, the EU’s executive in Brussels, to at least review the methane rules.
A draft of the document, seen by POLITICO, asks the Commission to “speedily assess” whether to pare back several energy laws, including the methane regulation. And it argues the rules “might impact the cooperation with economic operators from outside of the EU” — likely a veiled reference to the U.S. But it stops short of recommending specific changes.
The seven EU countries want to go further. They recommend specific changes to the penalty system and exemptions for some importers “in light of the new geopolitical context.” They also call for “flexibilities” to help bolster domestic gas production and identify several “redundant” measuring and monitoring rules they suggest dropping.
But they don’t suggest the EU completely revise the legislation, as industry lobbyists are demanding.
