EU Commission urges France to raise renewables target to ‘at least 44%’

The EU’s energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, has urged France to raise its renewable energy target to “at least 44%” by 2030, warning it would consider taking “steps” at EU level in case of persistent shortcomings.

Paris has until now refused to put forward a renewables target for 2030, pushing instead for a wider “decarbonised” energy goal, which combines nuclear power and renewables.

With a June deadline looming for EU countries to submit their final National Energy and Climate Plans, the European Commission is becoming increasingly confrontational with the French, insisting that they make their fair contribution to the EU’s renewable energy goals. 

According to Brussels’ calculations, France needs to achieve at least 44% renewables in its gross final energy consumption by 2030 in order to contribute to the EU target of 42.5% set out in the Renewable Energy Directive, which was updated last year.

“France has to significantly raise its ambition on renewable energy sources to at least 44%,” said Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, who spoke on Thursday (15 February) to lawmakers in the European Parliament’s committee on industry, research and energy.

France has already missed its renewables target for 2020 and refuses to rectify this via the bloc’s “statistical transfer” mechanism, where overachievers help out underachievers, as other countries did.

Now, the Commissioner is “advising them to include some missing specific targets”, a clear reference to France’s refusal to add a renewables target to its National Energy and Climate Plan. 

Every EU country must submit these plans to enable the Commission to assess whether the bloc is on track to meet its climate targets. Final versions must be submitted by June 2024. Simson said she was in “constant contact” with her French counterpart.

Will Paris accede to the demands from Brussels? The Energy Commissioner stressed that should the plans reveal that planned action is insufficient, “then we have to propose EU-level steps to cover that”.

Other countries have already folded. The Irish, who submitted their plan late and have historically been laggards on land-use emissions, “confirmed that they are willing to upgrade their target,” the Commissioner said.

France sticks to its guns, refuses to table 2030 renewable energy target

By refusing to table a target for 2030, France is failing to implement the EU’s renewable energy directive, the European Commission said on Monday (18 December) as part of its “recommendations” on the country’s draft National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP).

[Edited by Frédéric Simon]

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