Clear rules on nature and water benefit renewable energy development and biodiversity

The Treaty entered force in 2006, but contains only modest environmental safeguards such as requiring strategic environmental assessments for energy plans and programmes, and environmental impact assessments for individual projects.

The energy sector has long impacted our rivers and streams, but with the increasing decentralisation of our energy systems, conflicts between biodiversity and energy infrastructure are becoming more common.

The EU’s evolving legal framework for the development of renewable energy depends on already having nature safeguards in place. Among others, it prioritises strategic spatial planning to enable accelerated renewable energy deployment, which requires protected areas to already be established.

To respond to this changing reality, in 2025 the European Commission put forward a proposal to include parts of the above Directives in the Energy Community Treaty. The proposal builds on equivalent existing legal commitments under the Transport Community Treaty. It focuses not on designating new protected areas, but on ensuring that specific assessments are carried out to ensure compliance with the goals of the Directives when permitting new energy projects.

Everyone would benefit from clearer environmental criteria and procedures, as they help to minimize permitting uncertainty, project delays and costly legal conflicts.

The paper therefore argues that it is now increasingly urgent to include these Directives in the Treaty. If not adopted in 2026, the Western Balkans risk locking in renewable energy pathways that are legally uncertain, socially contested, and environmentally damaging.

This would not only endanger biodiversity, but also cause a backlash against the much-needed transition to an efficient, renewable energy system.