Renewable Energy Directive trilogue cancelled, green transition at an impasse

On 7 February 2023, the European Commission, the Parliament, and the Council were due to reunite for interinstitutional negotiations on the Renewable Energy Directive. Topics for discussion included bioenergy and the use of renewables in the transport sector. However, as there was no progress on the definition of renewable hydrogen by the Commission, Markus Pieper, the Directive’s rapporteur, argued that it is hard to define these sectoral objectives without it and cancelled the trilogue.

The fourth round of trilogues was cancelled following a unilateral request from the rapporteur on the legislative file, Markus Pieper, of the European Parliament. He laid the blame on the European Commission, which failed to this date to come up with a definition of and list of criteria for renewable hydrogen, as part of its draft Delegated Act on renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs). For lack of definition, the trilogues which were supposed to define the share of renewable e...