Position paper for EU Member States on applying Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2577 to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy

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Position paper    |    27 February 2023

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Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2577 of 22 December 2022 rightly aims to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy. But although it contains some useful provisions, it raises serious concerns about the legal basis used for its adoption, the extent to which it addresses the real barriers to renewables, and its backdoor changes to EU environmental law. Although the regulation speeds up the deployment of renewable energy, it does this in part by loosening the rules for such deployment. Member States are given some flexibility in how they apply the Regulation, which will create an environment of uncertainty.

This briefing provides Bankwatch’s guidance on how Member States should apply this new Regulation, in order to strike a balance between speeding up sustainable forms of renewable energy, applying EU environmental law and preventing legal uncertainty. The precautionary principle must also be applied in order to enable the EU to meet its 2030 biodiversity targets such as the restoration of 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers and the legal protection of a minimum of 30 per cent of the EU’s land and sea areas.