(L-R) Oliver Krischer, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection; Claude Turmes, Minister of Energy; Benoît Revaz, Director of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy;
Credit: MEA
On Wednesday 30 March 2022, the Energy Ministers of the Pentalateral Energy Forum, including Luxembourg's Minister of Energy, Claude Turmes, signed a joint political declaration aimed at strengthening coordination on natural gas storage.
The Benelux countries, along with Germany and France, created the Pentalateral Energy Forum in 2005. Austria and Switzerland joined the Forum in 2011. It is a partnership between regulators, governments, network operators and market players. The energy ministers concerned meet regularly.
In view of the current geopolitical situation, the Ministers wished to guarantee the security of gas supply for European citizens and businesses over the coming winters, to alleviate high energy bills and to promote the proper functioning of the European energy market.
Minister Turmes, is also the current President of the Pentalateral Energy Forum, said: “The Pentalateral Energy Forum has played a leading role in establishing cross-border energy cooperation”. He emphasised: “In the current tense geopolitical situation, gas storage facilities are very important assets to promote not only the proper functioning of the European gas market, but also the security of gas supply. We work closely together to develop appropriate frameworks to use gas storage effectively and efficiently.”
In the European Commission's recent proposals on gas storage, the seven energy ministers stressed that they must stick together and coordinate their activities in a regional context in order to remedy any differences between countries in terms of national legislation, capacity, storage and gas consumption.
To comply with these European storage obligations, the ministers considered it important to continue to use cross-border storage facilities, including in and from European third countries. Countries with limited or no storage capacity should actively encourage their national gas companies to use storage capacity in other countries.
In the political declaration, the signatories emphasised that storage obligations must be market-oriented and compatible with the European internal energy market. In addition, storage costs must be distributed fairly between countries.
In addition to cooperation and coordination on gas storage obligations, the countries of the Pentalateral Energy Forum will intensify their work at national, regional and European levels to accelerate the deployment of energy savings and renewable energy sources, in particular with regard to the REPowerEU plan which will be presented shortly by the European Commission.
