Uncertain liability and stagnating CCS deployment in the European Union: Is it the Member States’ turn?

Abstract Even though the European Union ( EU ) decided to promote carbon capture and storage ( CCS ) and it enacted a directive eight years ago to speed up the safe deployment of this technology, there is no functioning project yet in the EU . While this is a well‐understood technology with an important emission reduction potential, it requires a legal regime which affords sufficient certainty to operators about their potential liabilities. However, the European legal framework is perceived as achieving the opposite effect. The operator's liability is uncertain both in temporal and financial terms. This article considers that after the 2015 review of the CCS Directive, it is clear that at least a part in overcoming the industry's difficulties is more Member State action in the form of pragmatic interpretation and tailor‐made agreements, as it is the case in the ROAD project. Subsequently, certain technical and financial issues related to European CCS are analysed with a view to facilitate its deployment.