Months of re-drafting set to pay off for overworked EU Council staffers
Governments are set to reject a bid by the EU executive to wrest control over planning the development of Europe’s long-awaited electricity supergrid, but appear ready to accept a limited yet unprecedented role for European Commission officials.
There is widespread agreement in Europe that grid operators aren’t building enough cross-border cables, with many blaming the bloc’s rolling Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) for the gap. In December 2025, Brussels proposed a package of laws that would empower it to plan a “central scenario” – and require transmission system operators to work towards it.
After months of diplomatic back-and-forth and multiple ministerial deliberations, national capitals are set to greenlight a much watered-down version of the law, according to a draft obtained by Euractiv, paving the way for what will doubtless be fraught negotiations with MEPs in the autumn.
The draft subordinates the “central scenario” – the heart of the grids package – to the TYNDP it was meant to rein in, creates room for supplementary “sensitivity analyses” that could amount to additional scenarios, and moves the whole planning and approval process behind closed doors.
