Financing

Today EGEC sent a letter to the European Commission Executive Vice President on the European Green Deal, the Executive Vice President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age and the Commissioner on Energy. This letter was asking for the implementation of a fair framework for State Aid, that allow European Member States to support the development of innovative technologies and the market uptake of geothermal energy, notably in the heating and cooling sector.

In its statement, EGEC strongly highlighted that fossil methane does not have a role in the EU’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Regulation.

The European Commission will review and update the EU State Aid framework for energy and environment by the end of 2021.

EGEC Members are invited to provide feedback by 07/01/2021 to the European Commission questionnaire on the review of the State Aid Guidelines. This questionnaire notably looks to identify the most relevant ways to direct state aid to the efficient market uptake of renewable energy technologies.

EGEC welcomes the European Commission’s call to revise its competition policy that will support the successful implementation of the European Green Deal.

The sustainable finance regulation is a key opportunity to unlock the access to public and private finance for key renewable energy technologies, allowing the EU to implement its decarbonisation objectives. The implementation of the sustainable finance regulation, the establishment of a sustainable finance framework and the financing of sustainable investment however requires stakeholders to understand the needs of specific technologies that actively contribute to these objectives.

The EIB Group has organised a second round of stakeholder consultation in order to collect more inputs regarding the Bank’s ambition to become the EU’s first Climate Bank.

EGEC provided inputs to the process of designing the European Renewable Energy Financing Mechanism, which will finance renewable energy projects across Europe.

The GEORISK Consortium sent an open letter to DG Energy Director-General Ditte Juul Jørgensen, European Commission, calling for the establishment of an EU risk management scheme for geothermal energy. In particular, this scheme should be tied to instruments that structure the European energy market such as TEN-E or the Connecting Europe Facility.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has declared its ambition to become the EU’s first Climate Bank. It will restructure its financial services for climate and environmental projects and will align all its financial operations in accordance with the Paris Agreement.