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EU eyes funding foreign LNG projects to lower prices, draft plan reveals [1]

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Date: 2025-02-18 11:59:14+00:00

The proposal is part of an upcoming Action Plan for Affordable Energy, due out Feb. 26. The draft shows the EU also wants new laws to fast-track power grid upgrades and will encourage lower electricity taxes and swift permits for emerging nuclear technologies. The offerings are a central part of Brussels’ response to industry complaints that soaring energy costs are leaving them trailing their U.S. and Chinese competitors.

The plan, the document says, will "lower energy bills in the short term, while fast-tracking much-needed cost-saving structural reforms and reinforcing our energy systems to mitigate future price shocks."

Suggestions LNG projects could be in line for EU support are likely to fuel fears that efforts to rescue the continent's sluggish economy are taking priority over its climate change fight.

The document — prepared by the European Commission, the EU’s executive in Brussels — also suggests exploring "the option of longer-term contractual engagements to make prices more stable." That could include schemes "whereby the EU and/or Member States accompany EU importers in investing directly in export infrastructure abroad, providing preferential loans to private investors or by securing gas liquefaction rights."

Specifically, the draft references the “Japanese model,” which involves the government directly buying stakes in overseas LNG ventures in exchange for continued access to gas at preferential prices. Through this approach, Tokyo has become the largest public investor in American LNG projects, spending tens of billions of dollars and importing record levels of U.S. gas in recent years.

The Japan-U.S. LNG relationship deepened earlier this month when Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump.

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[1] Url: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-funding-foreign-lng-projects-lower-prices-draft-plan-commission/

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