At last Friday’s (26 June) energy council in Luxembourg, 12 member states, led by the Czech Republic and including the Netherlands, Italy, Poland and Belgium, pushed the European Commission to put the bloc’s methane import rules on hold for three years.
They specifically want article 28 delayed.
That rule requires oil, gas and coal companies to prove, from 2027, that anything they import under contracts signed after August 2024 meets EU-equivalent standards, or face penalties.
Importers with older contracts only have to prove that they’ve undertaken “all reasonable efforts” to do the same. They can be sanctioned, but only if they consistently fail to report on their efforts.
But despite these flexibilities, and because it hasn’t been ironed out exactly how monitoring and reporting is supposed to happen, importers face a measure of legal uncertainty.
