The European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets and Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs approved on 12 January the inter-institutional agreement on REPowerEU allowing Member States to include new energy priorities in their National Recovery and Resilience Plans.

The final version includes a revised form of the amendment proposed by MEP Victor Negrescu and Dan Nica whereby “Romania and any other Member State will be able to request a revision of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, on the basis of Article 21, if they prove that the current geopolitical context and its impact on energy prices, food, building materials, inflation have directly affected the ability to implement the measures included in the plan”.

”I am glad that I have once again managed to help flexible European regulations in order to allow Romania and other Member States to use as many European resources as possible in the current challenging context”, said the Romanian MEP, member of the Committee on Budgets.

According to him, ”if a Member State can demonstrate that the achievement of a specific milestone or target conflicts with the achievement of the REPowerEU objectives, such situations may also be invoked as objective circumstances under Article 21”.

The new inter-institutional agreement requires the amendment to be approved by the European Commission within 2 months.

Victor Negrescu announced that the document is due to be approved by the European Parliament plenary in early February and will enter into force in April, but its provisions apply retroactively.

It should be recalled that the European Parliament and EU Council negotiators reached an agreement in December on the REPowerEU proposal, which aims to strengthen the Union’s strategic autonomy by diversifying energy supply and increasing the Union’s independence and security of energy supply.