On 30 October 2025, policymakers, academics, national methane experts and civil society representatives met in Brussels to discuss the implementation of the EU Methane Regulation (EUMR). The Roundtable came at a critical time where Member States are working hard to translate the EUMR’s provisions into enforceable national measures, overshadowed by growing deregulation attempts.
However, some EU governments are delaying implementation, questioning the law’s scope, cost and feasibility, while lobbying from across the Atlantic is intensifying. With increased transatlantic gas flows since the 2022 energy price crisis and the recent EU–US trade deal aiming to triple LNG exports to Europe, EU and US industry groups, official representatives of the Trump administration are seeking to weaken numerous EU climate, environmental and social laws, including the EUMR. If properly enforced, the EUMR will regulate methane intensity and toxicity of US – and other regions’ – fossil gas supply chains and exports to the EU.
The Methane Roundtable event underscored one reality: the implementation of the EUMR is a work in progress, which, if done correctly, will have a great impact on reducing climate wrecking methane emissions.
Why methane action matters
Methane is the second most potent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. It stays in the atmosphere for about a decade, so cutting it now – particularly the methane emissions from the energy sector – offers the fastest and most effective way to slow climate change in the short term. This is why the EUMR is a key instrument for staying within the 1.5°C limit, and comes at a particular time as we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. However it is not the only tool, but rather one important piece of the puzzle contributing to an urgently needed EU wide fossil gas phase out by 2035.
Global energy-related methane emissions continue to rise, as better data now reveal emissions that have long been underreported and underestimated by the fossil fuel industry. This is precisely where the EUMR intervenes, setting binding rules for detecting, reporting, and reducing emissions, banning routine venting and flaring, and repairing leaks from fossil fuel operations, for EU based operators as well as for importers placing coal, oil and gas on the EU market. Given that the EU is one of the world’s largest importers of fossil gas and has significantly increased its methane-intensive LNG imports since 2022, the import framework of the EUMR would ensure upstream emissions are addressed and reduced, placing the EU as a key international player in methane mitigation.
But this would also prevent Europe from outsourcing the cost of methane pollution, as communities near fossil fuel extraction and export sites pay the price of unregulated emissions with their health and lives, made evident by John Beard from Port Arthur Community Action Network testimony at the event (see here). Through greater transparency in the supply chains and verifiable data, the EUMR helps address these harms and indirectly strengthens the EU’s broader effort to phase out fossil fuels and move toward a cleaner energy system. But turning this ambition into measurable results depends on how well Member States and industries put the law into practice. And right now, two major implementation bottlenecks are threatening that progress.
The sanction gap: rules need to have teeth
Discussions at the Roundtable highlighted that a strong Methane Regulation would enhance resilience, transparency, and gas savings while reducing dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets. But without clearly defined sanctions for non compliance with the EU methane rules, the EUMR would be just a toothless piece of paper.
A first draft of a comparative analysis produced by the Ecologic Institute was presented during the discussions, looking at four different penalty regimes that some Member States are currently working on. The analysis warned of a growing “patchwork” of national approaches risk leading to “enforcement shopping”. Indeed, while some front runner Member States are setting ambitious fines adequate to the proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness requirements of EU law, others are introducing big loopholes such as security of supply exemption clauses, risking rendering their whole penalty system ineffective.
Experts discussed how to avoid creating an un-even level playing field at EU level, focusing on how to make sanctions truly dissuasive, in the meaning of significantly depriving those responsible for infringements of any economic benefits gained from the non-compliance, while avoiding translating this cost of non-compliance into tariffs bared by end consumers.
Some stakeholders argued for a harmonized default value to define the fines across the EU, while others favored linking sanctions to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), aligning the cost of methane with that of carbon. The viability and effectiveness of the latter approach however was questioned. Ultimately, the chosen solution needs to satisfy the objective of making methane financially visible and oil and gas operators accountable for their emissions.
Tracing Methane back to the source
The second major challenge lies in the import framework. From 2027 onwards, fossil fuel importers will need to demonstrate the MRV equivalence of their supplier, meaning tracing methane emissions back to specific production sites, to get the access to the correct site-level reported data and emissions measurements. These rules are based on the global voluntary reporting standard set by the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (OGMP 2.0), and more specifically the Level 5 reporting framework: importers will need to demonstrate high-quality, site-level measurements complemented and verified with satellite data observations.
This is where things become complicated: while the EUMR requires additional third party independent verification to greenlight an MRV equivalence, the up- and mid-stream supply chains can be extremely complex for importers to trace back methane emissions to site-level measurements. Here the reliance on satellite observations only reaches its limits and needs to be complemented by site-level verifications. The quality of current gas certification systems needs to be further improved and most importantly, at the end of the process an independent verification authority needs to be involved.
To address the issue of tracing leaks, the Methane Roundtable addressed different approaches. The Trace and Claim mechanism presented by the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) ensures robust, site-level tracking of methane emissions, providing a clear chain of accountability based on the gas purchases and contracts that can be followed across complex supply chains. By contrast, the Book and Claim system allows for greater flexibility but risks producing fragmented and less reliable data, not including all asset level reported methane measurements. Some participants advocated for a more pragmatic approach, suggesting that importers could report emissions on an annual basis rather than through strict day-by-day site tracking. While such flexibility might ease administrative burdens, participants cautioned that it could weaken data credibility and the industry’s accountability. Satellite-based monitoring, while powerful, still faces limitations at site level, and the current shortage of independent third-party verifiers further complicates the picture.
Getting this right is however essential to maintaining the credibility of the EU’s methane data, and to ensuring that foreign suppliers meet the same standards as European operators.
Cutting methane for the energy transition
The debate around penalties and data verification highlights a broader truth: the success of the EUMR depends on real political will to work on measures effectively reducing the EU’s gas demand. Under the Fit for 55 package, gas demand is expected to fall by around 30% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. The REPowerEU plan and the 2040 Climate Law set out policies to further reduce gas demand significantly with only residual volumes left in 2040 in line with current trends showing that gas in the power sector is progressively being replaced by renewables mainly wind and solar energy. This already ongoing transition goes hand in hand with the objective of curbing methane emissions quickly and permanently.
The message from the High Level Roundtable on Methane was clear: technical bottlenecks might still exist, but so do the tools, knowledge and technology to cut methane emissions and they continue to improve while the EUMR is being implemented.
With COP 30 just days away and four years after the EU co-launched the Global Methane Pledge at COP 26, the EU must show the way by implementing strong methane rules and maintain its position as a global leader in climate action.
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