Members of the European Parliament have voted to extend the timetable for methane monitoring and reporting obligations for oil, gas and coal importers and producers, approving a three-year delay compared with current rules — two years longer than originally put forward by the European Commission.
What Parliament is doing
The plenary adopted a measure to push back the start of methane monitoring and reporting obligations for energy importers and producers by three years. The vote came from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, which led parliamentary work on the file. The change affects operators handling imported oil, gas and coal, aligning their compliance date with the amended schedule approved by MEPs.
Why it matters
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and monitoring its emissions from the fossil-fuel supply chain is a policy priority for the EU. The Commission had proposed a shorter delay; Parliament’s decision to extend that delay by an additional two years alters the timetable for when importers and producers must start systematic monitoring and reporting. The later start date will affect when regulated entities must implement monitoring systems and when authorities will begin receiving standardised data from the sector.
What happens next
The parliamentary vote implements the three-year postponement as Parliament’s position on the dossier. The press notice does not specify further procedural steps, such as whether the outcome will be subject to interinstitutional negotiations with the Council or additional votes. Details on any transitional arrangements, enforcement mechanisms or the exact new compliance dates were not included in the release.
The announcement was issued by the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. No additional technical details, legal text excerpts or statements from individual MEPs were provided in the committee’s summary.
Source: European Parliament press release
