Orange light for González Casares report

When they adopted Nicolás González Casares' report on the reform of the Electricity Market Design just before the summer break, MEPs within the EP ITRE Committee also approved a decision to enter into inter-institutional negotiations on the basis of article 71 of the Rules of Procedure. This procedure would enable the Parliament to forgo a Plenary vote and start negotiating with the Council on the basis of the text adopted in Committee. Certain MEPs are of the opinion that this decision would deprive them of the opportunity to table amendments to the ITRE report in Plenary.

From a procedural standpoint, MEPs have the ability to initiate a vote on such a decision through a process known as a plenary check, provided they satisfy the requisite medium threshold (i.e. one-tenth of the Parliament, so 71 MEPs). That is exactly what a group of MEPs successfully did on Tuesday, effectively forcing a vote to endorse or not EP ITRE's mandate on the design of the electricity market design that will be held on Thursday.

Tomorrow’s vote will thus determine whether the Parliament will be ready to begin negotiations with the Council by the end of the week, or whether EP ITRE's report will have to be revisited by the Plenary at a later date. Notwithstanding this, the Council has yet to finalise its own negotiating mandate, which has been in the works for months as Member States continue to disagree on critical aspects of the file.