Letter from Brussels: Gas infrastructure falls out of favour

Coal-to-gas switching could be undermined by proposed regulation excluding gas infrastructure from energy priority scheme

The European Commission’s proposal to revise the Trans-European Energy ­(TEN-E) regulation aims to align EU support for energy projects with European Green Deal objectives. But it threatens to hamper the coal-to-gas switching that has made, and could still make, a significant contribution to lowering emissions across several member states. The proposed changes, unveiled in December, will constrain the scope of TEN-E regulation to designate new gas infrastructure as EU projects of common interest (PCIs). Becoming a PCI means greater potential for EU funding—primarily under the Connecting Europe Facility, which allocated €1.5bn ($1.82bn) to gas projects from 2014-20—and for fast-tracking of pe