BT spreads misinformation about the EU’s energy policy

The EU can seem complicated to many, and it is important to increase the level of knowledge among most people. It is not easy when even commentators in major Norwegian newspapers misunderstand.

Bergens Tidende’s commentator Hans K. Mjelva writes on 24 April that the government is considering adopting the renewables directive now in order to comply with the EU’s deadline, and then pass the more complicated parts of the Clean Energy package on to the next government. Parts which, according to him, involve “a power price bomb” and which will transfer more power over Norwegian energy policy from the Storting to the EU body Acer.

None of this is correct. It is also not correct, as Mjelva insinuates, that it is the EU which – in the letter about the deadline for the introduction of the renewables directive – has proposed that the Støre government forward the other parts of the Clean Energy package to the next government. There is nothing about this in the letter.

Clean energy packagen does not mean that power prices will be determined in a different way than today, that we will have to build more power cables to other countries or that Norwegian electricity prices will increase. The regulations also do not imply that Acer will gain control over what the Storting is currently responsible for adopting.

As the Supreme Court concluded in the Acer case, despite Norway’s membership in Acer, it is still Norwegian politicians who decide energy policy in Norway. Acer also has no influence on Norwegian electricity prices.

When it comes to the content of the renewables directive, Mjelva mixes two different versions of this. It is the version from 2018 – which goes by the name RED II – that the EU has given Norway a deadline of mid-August to introduce.

Nevertheless, what Mjelva mentions is the content of the renewables directive from RED III, which was adopted in the EU last autumn. Norway must introduce RED II before we can introduce RED III, as these build on each other.

The main purpose of the EU’s renewables directive is to increase the development of renewable energy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make Europe more self-sufficient in energy. That is why the directive introduces a deadline for how long a license processing can take.

But the processing time for the development of wind power and other renewable power will not be reduced from six to seven years to one to two years if Norway introduces the renewables directive in the coming months, as Mjelva claims.

According to RED II the license processing time for new power generation must be a maximum of three years. But the clock does not start ticking until the full application, including a thorough impact assessment, has been submitted.

It is good that we have a public exchange of words about the EEA agreement’s significance for Norwegian energy policy. But this debate should be based on facts, not misinformation.

We hope that the Norwegian media, including Bergens Tidende, will contribute to a more enlightened debate about the EU in the future, and will therefore become better at fact-checking their EU affairs.