Euractiv: 11 EU countries have still not submitted updated climate and energy plans

EU countries were supposed to submit updated national climate and energy plans (NCEPs) by the end of the first half of this year, but according to Euractiv, 11 of them have still not done so. According to the non-profit Coalition for Energy Savings, none of the 16 NCEPs submitted so far is fully in line with the updated Energy Efficiency Directive. Only four countries - Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Spain - have submitted plans that are nearly in line with the requirements of the updated EED.

EU member states had until 30 June 2023 to submit draft national climate and energy plans (NCEPs) to the European Commission. In them, governments were to outline new measures - including measures on energy efficiency - to meet the EU target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by the end of the decade.

The European Commission now has until the end of the year to assess each plan individually and issue recommendations to individual countries, six months before the final deadline for submitting the definitive NCEPs in June 2024, Euractiv reports.

According to a new report, only 16 EU countries met the June deadline for submitting updated national energy and climate plans to the European Commission for the period up to 2030. None of them, however, is fully in line with the EU's latest energy efficiency targets.

In addition, "four countries - Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden - do not reflect the requirements of the new EED at all in their plans," the coalition said in a new report. "At best, they acknowledge that a new directive has been adopted, but do not update their drafts to reflect the new provisions," it said.

Plans will need revision

For the first time, the EU's overall energy efficiency target is being allocated among member states using a reference formula that sets their national contributions, with an automatic mechanism to fill any gaps if countries fail to meet their commitment to reduce final energy consumption by 1.5% annually over the 2024-2030 period.

The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), adopted earlier this year, sets an EU-wide target of reducing energy consumption by at least 11.7% by 2030.

"The plans already submitted still fall far short of European expectations and need further revision," the coalition warned.

Missed deadline

Three months after the June deadline for submitting draft updated plans, 11 are still missing - those from Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Ireland, Greece, Latvia and Romania.

The previous NCEPs were completed in 2020, but are no longer in line with the EU's climate ambitions set out in the European Green Deal. These were updated last year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with the aim of accelerating the phase-out of Russian fossil fuel imports.

Earlier this month, the European Commission informed EU member states of the latest situation and warned that if it did not receive draft NCEPs by the end of October, "it would not be able to assess them by December 2023".

"With 11 plans still missing three months after the deadline for submitting draft plans, the Commission is considering further options for legal follow-up," the Commission said in a note shared with the environment ministers of the 27 EU member states.

The fact is, however, that countries found themselves in a difficult position, as some directives in the Fit for 55 package had not been approved by the original deadline for submitting the plans. For example, the RED III Directive was published only in the final days. This, too, complicated the completion of national documents.