Industry and NGOs Urge EU to Keep Renewable Energy Directive Stable Post-2030

NGOs, civil society and industry call on the European Commission to refrain from reopening the RED legislative framework during the negotiation of the post-2030 energy architecture.

Ahead of the Energy Council of 29 October, a group of NGOs, civil society actors and companies are calling on the European Commission and Member States to commit to the stability of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and refrain from reopening this legislative framework during the negotiation of the post-2030 energy architecture.

The RED is a European success story. It remarkably drove the deployment of renewables in the last decades. Not reopening the RED is the most rigorous and timely pathway to ensure regulatory stability and not amending the rules is the best simplification exercise.

The Renewable Energy Directive has been revised four times in as many years. While each revision addressed legitimate policy developments, the cumulative effect is that the new provisions included since 2023 are still yet to be implemented in most EU Member States.

This regulatory instability undermines the investment certainty essential to meeting Europe’s climate and energy security objectives. Investment in renewable energy and associated infrastructure depends on predictable regulatory frameworks. Financial institutions require clarity on targets, permitting procedures, grid and network access rules, auction mechanisms to underwrite long-term deployment and effective power purchase and heat purchase agreement frameworks.

Further RED revision now risks:

• Delaying final investment decisions in renewable projects
• Raising financing costs as investors price in regulatory uncertainty
• Diverting regulatory attention from implementation and enforcement, which is where real-world delivery takes place

What Europe needs is rigorous implementation of these rules across all Member States, not legislative revision. To accelerate this, the Commission should:

• Enforce existing RED provisions through conditionality of EU funds
• Provide technical assistance to accelerate Member State capacity for permitting and grid planning

Download letter.

Article from T&E.