Italy’s parliament voted Tuesday to delay the closure of the country’s coal-fired power stations by over a decade, a move experts slammed as “worrying” political propaganda.<\/p>\n
In a fresh challenge to the EU’s green transition, Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right coalition government pushed the shutdown back from 2026 to 2038 on “energy security” grounds.<\/p>\n
Italy is heavily reliant on imported gas and Rome is under pressure from industry and consumers over the rise in already sky-high energy costs due to the Middle East war.<\/p>\n
While Brussels insists that phasing out coal is key to achieving the EU’s climate goals, Rome says it may be forced to use its coal-fired power stations if gas prices continue upwards.<\/p>\n
But experts who spoke to AFP said that reactivating the plants would not lower electricity prices.<\/p>\n
Italy’s move comes as others including Germany, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan, have similarly signalled that coal-fired plants could ease energy woes caused by the war.<\/p>\n
The Italian government’s bill extending the phase-out was approved by the lower house of parliament Tuesday, and now goes to the Senate, where the ruling coalition has a majority.<\/p>\n
The delay is “a worryingly backward-looking political signal”, while “any security gain is far from guaranteed”, Beatrice Petrovich, senior energy analyst at energy think tank Ember, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Only Germany, Poland, and Bulgaria share a coal phase-out date as unambitious as Italy’s new one, she said.<\/p>\n
The EU’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, who was in Rome Tuesday for a hearing with senators on Italy’s energy mix, declined to comment on Rome’s decision.<\/p>\n
– ‘Old fleet’ –<\/p>\n
Climate think tank ECCO said Rome’s postponement was “symbolically damaging, but low-impact in practice — at least for now”.<\/p>\n
“The government is deliberately maintaining ambiguity between ‘not dismantling’ and ‘actually using’ coal plants for political gains”, it said.<\/p>\n
Italy currently has four coal-fired power stations. Two of them are on the mainland, are dormant and lost their authorisation to burn coal in January, ECCO said.<\/p>\n
Restarting them would mean applying for new permits, a process that takes years and would be subject to significant legal and community opposition, it said.<\/p>\n
The other two are in Sardinia, and are earmarked for closure in 2028-2029, once the island is electrically linked to the mainland via a new submarine cable.<\/p>\n
ECCO’s Executive Director Luca Bergamaschi told AFP Italy’s “old and largely non-operational coal fleet would be very expensive to restart”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Petrovich agreed that “coal plays a minor role in Italy’s power mix and this won’t change going forward”.<\/p>\n
Italy’s total coal generation in 2025 was approximately 2,975 GWh, and less than 1 percent of national electricity output, according to state-controlled power grid operator Terna.<\/p>\n
There is no financial incentive for operators to return to coal, and the price of coal imported to Europe has recently surged, the experts said.<\/p>\n
Coal is also uncompetitive against gas under the EU’s carbon tax scheme.<\/p>\n
Including it in the energy security tool-kit “risks being an additional burden on Italy’s electricity consumers, who already pay some of the highest electricity prices in the EU”, Petrovich said.<\/p>\n
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