{"id":169445,"date":"2025-06-09T05:25:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T05:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/169445\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T05:25:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T05:25:19","slug":"eu-and-british-energy-groups-call-for-rewrite-of-post-brexit-trading-arrangements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/169445\/","title":{"rendered":"EU and British energy groups call for rewrite of post-Brexit trading arrangements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

European and British energy companies have jointly called for the post-Brexit energy trading arrangements between the EU and the UK to be radically rewritten to create a \u201cgreen energy hub\u201d in the North Sea.<\/p>\n

An open letter<\/a> from 20 leading green energy companies and pressure groups to EU and UK energy ministers warned that the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement creates a \u201csuboptimal\u201d mechanism for trading electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned that the EU and the UK will not achieve their objectives of fully developing the potential of the North Seas as long as electricity is traded using suboptimal market mechanisms,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

The signatories, including leading EU interconnector companies and the UK\u2019s National Grid, warned that energy trading provisions in the TCA risked creating uncertainty that \u201cimpedes investment\u201d, which both sides need to hit ambitious green energy targets.<\/p>\n

UK and EU leaders have promised a \u201creset\u201d of relations in the coming years, with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visiting Brussels this month to meet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to signal formally the start of a rapprochement.<\/p>\n

A joint statement between the two sides on October 2 promised to forge a new strategic partnership, including working together on \u201cclimate change and energy prices\u201d despite apparent disagreements over other areas, such as youth mobility. <\/p>\n

At the point of Brexit, the UK<\/a> left the EU single market, including its internal energy market, which allows electricity to be traded efficiently across the bloc, helping to provide certainty to investors in alternative energy.<\/p>\n

A complex pricing mechanism, known as multi-region loose volume coupling (MRLVC), was included in the TCA but has never come into force because of technical challenges in implementing the scheme.<\/p>\n

The North Sea, one of Britain\u2019s best sources of consistent offshore wind, is increasingly seen as a critical energy resource for both the UK and the EU, with the bloc pushing to increase vastly its use of renewable power to replace Russian fossil fuel supplies. <\/p>\n

Kristian Ruby, secretary-general of the EU electricity industry body Eurelectric, described the North Sea as \u201ca mega power plant that will supply both continental Europe and the British Isles\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that it was \u201ctime to move on from Brexit minimalism and explore mutually beneficial co-operation arrangements between the UK and the EU\u201d.<\/p>\n

In April 2023, the UK joined eight other northern European countries, including France and Norway, in signing up to the Ostend Declaration, committing to deliver 300 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050 \u2014 more than doubling output in the two decades from 2030.<\/p>\n

Adam Berman, a deputy director at industry lobbyist Energy UK, which also signed the letter, said it was clear the post-Brexit electricity trading arrangements were \u201cnot fit for purpose\u201d and put EU and UK ambitions for the North Sea \u201cat risk\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that a \u201cnew approach\u201d was needed to ensure that both sides could benefit from the \u201cclean energy infrastructure that will power a net zero economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Giles Dickson, chief executive of the industry body WindEurope, said the \u201clack of clarity\u201d on post-Brexit electricity trading rules was holding up offshore wind energy investment in the North Sea. <\/p>\n

\u201cEnergy producers and grid operators in the EU and UK are in full agreement on how to solve this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Industry experts said the current trading system was highly inefficient and reflected the bloc\u2019s previous concerns that the UK should not be allowed to cherry-pick access to the EU single market.<\/p>\n

However, the solution proposed by the letter\u2019s signatories was to extend the EU\u2019s price-coupling mechanism to the GB market, a step they said could be achieved without reopening the TCA \u2014 something both sides have said they do not wish to do.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Trucks<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe call upon both sides of the seas to seize the opportunity to overcome the past political impasse following the UK\u2019s withdrawal from the EU and to open up for a new phase that allows mutual benefits to be secured via a pragmatic approach,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

The commission said it was \u201ccommitted to implement\u00a0what is foreseen in the TCA\u201d, which included the MRLVC trading arrangements.<\/p>\n

But it admitted that the application of these arrangements had \u201cproven to be more challenging than initially thought\u201d and that a recommendation for further analysis of the mechanism should be adopted by the end of 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-169445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114651747042579462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}