A great victory. Le Sénat à majorité de droite adopted a première lecture dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi un projet de loi pour accélérer les énergies renouvelables (EnR), porté por Agnès Pannier-Runacher, que tentera des le 5 decembre de trouver une majorité à l ‘National Assembly.
The vote for this text widely enriched by the senators was acquired by 320 votes “for” and 5 “against” (4 LR and one centrist). The communist majority group CRCE abstained.
Triptych
In the midst of the energy crisis, this bill aims to make France recover its great delay in renewable energies.
It is divided into main components: streamlining administrative procedures to reduce project implementation time; accelerate the development of solar energy and offshore wind energy; improve the local acceptability of projects.
The EnR bill is the first part of a triptych complemented by a bill aimed at facilitating the construction of six new nuclear reactors, presented this Wednesday to the Council of Ministers. Then, in the second half of 2023, by the next energy and climate law programming.
“We cannot afford to wait to get out of fossil fuels. The French are watching us”, said the Minister for the Energy Transition.
Two blocking points introduced in committee at the initiative of the rapporteur LR Didier Mandelli were lifted in the Chamber, at the cost of lengthy negotiations.
The Senate has renounced a “veto” right of the mayors on the establishment of renewable energies, in favor of a more global system based on the choice by the municipalities of “priority zones”.
“The mayor will therefore be able to oppose the installation of wind turbines if he does not want them in his territory,” said the LR group. This rather complex device should be “smoothed out” in the continuation of the shuttle.
“Great strides” in photovoltaics
The Senate also renounced the 40 km distance from the coast for offshore wind turbines, which according to Agnès Pannier-Runacher would have “very significantly” reduced the development potential of these projects.
The PS group was “delighted that the main political orientations of the senatorial right have been undermined during the debate in public session.”
The ecologists welcomed “the suppression of the veto right of the mayors” and the “important advances” obtained in photovoltaic installations.
“The Senate will be able to pretend to have involved the local elected officials” in the development of renewable energies, declared the president of the Economic Affairs Commission, Sophie Primas (LR).
Source: BFM TV
