Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Iran Conflict 2026
12AUG

Two capitals filed on the gas directive

3 min read
14:52UTC

Portugal lodged a partial transposition in April. Slovakia lodged a note saying it needs none. The other twenty-five member states have filed nothing at all.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Only Portugal and Slovakia have told Brussels they have transposed the recast EU gas directive.

Portugal and Slovakia are the only members of the European Union's twenty-seven to have notified the European Commission of national measures transposing Directive (EU) 2024/1788, two days before the deadline of Wednesday 5 August 2026 1. The directive recast the bloc's rules for its internal markets in renewable gas, natural gas and hydrogen. Its Article 94 requires transposing measures to be in force by that Wednesday.

Portugal lodged Decreto-Lei n.º 94/2026 of 30 April 2026, whose own title calls it a transposição parcial, a partial transposition, covering this directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive together. Slovakia lodged Zákon č. 259/2025 under the register annotation "Member State does not consider the transposition necessary" 2. Bratislava has told Brussels it sees no new domestic law as needed. Lisbon has told Brussels it has written part of one.

EUR-Lex records notifications to the Commission, not the contents of national gazettes. Filing lags legislating as a matter of routine, and a capital can have a statute in force with nothing yet standing against its name in Brussels. What the register supports is the narrow reading, and the narrow reading still merits a desk's attention: two governments have told the Commission they have transposed, on a deadline whose listed articles run to unbundling, certification of transmission and distribution system operators, third-party access, tariff principles for gas and hydrogen networks, network development planning, storage and LNG facility access, and supplier switching 3.

Missing a transposition deadline starts a documented procedure rather than a fine. the Commission's April infringements package issued reasoned opinions against Croatia, Poland and Portugal over a separate electricity directive, leaving those three one procedural step short of a referral to the Court of Justice . The instruments that actually landed across the past fortnight came from agencies rather than parliaments: ACER published an EU-wide generation investment-cost dataset on 30 July , and CRE authorised experimental local flexibility markets on the RTE and Enedis platforms the same day. Harmonised hydrogen network access cannot arrive that way. It needs twenty-seven legislatures, and so far two of them have said anything at all.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

EU countries have until 5 August 2026 to write their own laws implementing a shared rulebook for gas and hydrogen networks, covering things like who can access a pipeline and how storage facilities are priced. Portugal has only partly done this so far, and Slovakia has told Brussels it thinks its existing laws already cover the requirement.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The directive folds hydrogen network access and storage rules into what was previously a gas-only regime, so states must decide whether to extend existing gas TSO certification frameworks to hydrogen operators or write parallel rules.

Portugal's partial filing and Slovakia's non-necessity claim both point to legislatures treating the hydrogen provisions as the harder drafting problem, not the established gas articles.

What could happen next?
  • Precedent

    The Commission's register will likely show a wave of late or partial notifications from other member states as the 5 August deadline passes, since Portugal and Slovakia's filings suggest hydrogen provisions are the sticking point across the bloc.

  • Risk

    Slovakia's non-necessity claim invites Commission scrutiny; a formal challenge would clarify how much existing national law can substitute for a new transposing instrument.

First Reported In

Update #32 · Two of 27 have filed on the gas rulebook

EUR-Lex· 3 Aug 2026
Read original
Different Perspectives
Anwar Gargash, UAE presidential diplomatic adviser
Anwar Gargash, UAE presidential diplomatic adviser
Gargash warned the region cannot stay trapped between "neither war nor peace", naming the stalemate itself as unsustainable for a Gulf state hosting US forces and absorbing the shipping-risk cost without being party to either the strike decisions or the corridor talks.
Shipping and insurance underwriters
Shipping and insurance underwriters
War-risk premiums are still set against an active blockade and a fatal Bab el-Mandeb attack with an unresolved vessel identity. A disabling strike and a diplomatic "advanced" claim pulling in opposite directions gives underwriters no single signal to reprice cover against.
Pakistan and Qatar (Oman corridor mediators)
Pakistan and Qatar (Oman corridor mediators)
Pakistan's defence minister said matters are "shaping up in favor of peace" on Hormuz and a Qatari spokesperson called the Iran-Oman reopening talks advanced. Both are publicly ahead of Tehran's own security council, which has just disowned the deal's significance.
United States Central Command / President Trump
United States Central Command / President Trump
CENTCOM confirmed a helicopter strike disabled a container ship that tried to evade the blockade, and Trump said the US "totally controls" the Strait of Hormuz. Washington is treating evasion of the blockade as grounds for disabling fire rather than the redirection tactic CENTCOM used through July.
Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's Supreme National Security Council
Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's Supreme National Security Council
Rezaei told China's ambassador Hormuz reopens only when the US ends the war and unblocks Iran's funds, and that the Oman transit deal "will have no impact" on that decision. He is drawing a hard line between the technical corridor track and the political settlement his council controls.
Yemen's internationally recognised government and affected communities
Yemen's internationally recognised government and affected communities
SABA reported at least 17 soldiers killed at Saudi-backed camps in eastern Yemen as tanker use of Bab el-Mandeb fell. The fighting adds civilian and supply risks to a route ships use when Hormuz is unsafe.