Source: European Parliament
Question for written answer E-001877/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Maria Zacharia (NI)
In January 2025, the Commission announced that it would invest EUR 1.25 billion in cross-border infrastructure from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Among the projects selected for funding was the carbon dioxide (CO2) storage project in Prinos (13.11-EL-W-M-24-Prinos CO2).
The project will be implemented in a natural/geological oil reservoir system, with a total area of 256.86 km2, and be located in marine, undersea and land-based sites a short distance off the coasts of Kavala and Thasos. It also includes the maritime transport of CO2 from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece and Italy. In accordance with Directive 2001/42/EC, a Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment should thus have been prepared first and, in particular, neighbouring countries should have received advance information under Article 7, which was not the case.
In addition, the proposed project falls within the scope of the Seveso Directive (Directive 2012/18/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012), meaning that a safety report and emergency plans should have been drawn up. However, the project was submitted for an environmental impact assessment consultation on 25 November 2024, which was completed at a later stage and which does not even contain an adequate assessment of the geological risks present in an undersea area basically on top of the Anatolian fault line.
Was the Commission aware of this when it included the project in the CEF, and had an adequate risk assessment been carried out?
Submitted: 12.5.2025