EU agrees new provisional natural gas transit rules

By Murat Temizer

ANKARA (AA) - The European Union reached a provisional agreement on new rules governing gas pipeline imports, including Russia's planned Nord Stream 2, the European Commission (EC) announced on Wednesday.

The Commission said that the aim of the proposal is to improve the existing Gas Directive and ensure that the principles of EU energy legislation, namely third-party access, tariff regulation, ownership unbundling, and transparency apply to all gas pipelines to and from third countries.

The EC said that it welcomes the agreement to ensure that pipelines with third countries comply with EU gas regulations. The new directive calls for all import pipelines not to be directly owned by gas suppliers and to allow at least 10 percent of the capacity to be made available to third parties.

Following this provisional agreement, the text of the directive will be prepared in all EU languages and will then be formally approved by the European Parliament and the EC, after which the directive will need to be to be transposed into national law within nine months.

"The EC proposed common rules for gas pipelines entering the European gas market, on Nov. 8, 2017. These rules aim at increasing security of supply and builds upon the solidarity dimension of the Energy Union," the EC said in a written statement.

"This is a major step forward in the creation of a truly integrated internal gas market which is based on solidarity and trust with full involvement of the EC. Today, Europe is closing a loophole in the EU legal framework. The new rules ensure that EU law will be applied to pipelines bringing gas to Europe and that everyone interested in selling gas to Europe must respect European energy law," said Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.

"Together with the previously agreed rules on security of gas supply and intergovernmental agreements, Europe has given itself a strong set of tools to deal effectively and collectively with our external energy suppliers," he said.

The agreement means the section in Germany's territorial waters of the 55 billion-cubic-meter Nord Stream 2 pipeline could have to comply with EU rules.

"Ensuring that all major gas pipelines to and from third countries are operated efficiently under a regime of transparent, regulatory oversight will diminish conflicts of interests between infrastructure operators and gas suppliers, guarantee non-discriminatory tariff setting and provide legal certainty for future investment decisions," the EC explained.

The EU countries import around 42 percent of its gas from Russia, 34 percent from Norway and 10 percent from Algeria, while the remaining 14 percent comes in the form of LNG from a number of countries.