Polish Briefing: Acts on gas storage under the scope of the EC. Poland is running out of time

What goes on in Poland on the 2nd of March.

Acts on gas storage under the scope of the EC. Poland is running out of time

The French Gas Storage Act is being analyzed by the European Commission. Similar regulation in Poland also caught the attention of Brussels. The explanations were to appear in January. The case may end in the EU tribunal.

– The European Commission has initiated a detailed investigation to determine whether the regulatory mechanism for the storage of natural gas introduced by France is in line with EU state aid rules – reports CIRE.PL. – In December 2017, France introduced a mechanism for the storage of natural gas, which aims to maintain the storage capacity deemed necessary to ensure the security of natural gas supply in that country.

Poland will closely monitor this process because it has itself introduced the law on gas storage challenged by private companies operating on the Polish market. It obliges all entities to reserve storage capacity to guarantee continuity of supply or to purchase a ticket service from Gas Storage Poland, a subsidiary of PGNiG, which is an operator of gas storage facilities in Poland.

French and Polish regulations increase security of supply, but also make it more difficult for new players to enter the market, among whom not everyone is able to finance the implementation of the storage obligation. It also reduces the profitability of operations in Poland. At the end of November 2019, the Commission decided that the Polish law on storage was incompatible with EU regulations and gave Poles two months to explain or would refer the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union. There is no new information on this topic.