Brussels, 08/12/2009 (Agence Europe) - Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (EPP, Poland) has been appointed by the leader of the EPP Wilfried Martens to coordinate meetings of the working group of ministers from the EPP family responsible for energy issues. The first meeting took place on Monday 7 December, immediately before the Energy Ministers' Council (see EUROPE 10035). The EPP says that meetings of the working group provide an invaluable opportunity to prepare for Energy Council meetings. The agendas, indeed, will reflect those of the Council. Thus, at their first meeting, discussion was centred mainly on the proposal for a regulation on the security of gas supply, brought forward by the Commission in July (see EUROPE 9944). According to the EPP, energy security must be seen as being of vital importance to the overall security of the EU, and the solidarity mechanism, provided for in the 2004 directive on measures to ensure the supply of natural gas (2004/67), should be bolstered. “The EPP family has a leading role to play in the creation of the architecture of the common foreign policy on energy,” Saryusz-Wolski says in a press release. He adds that the meeting was “a crucial step towards bringing our interests and priorities together” and “speaking with one voice in the Council”. The report by Alejo Vidal-Quadras (EPP, Spain), discussed by the EP industry, research and energy (ITRE) committee last week, stated that the EU should have the instruments needed to foresee possible disruption of gas supply and to allow it to respond immediately to crises. The ministers with responsibility for energy matters attending the meeting were Reinhold Mitterlehner of Austria, Juhan Parts of Estonia, Waldemar Pawlak of Poland, Claudio Scajola of Italy, Arvydas Sekmokas of Lithuania, Traicho Traikov of Bulgaria, Florin Ionel of Romania, and Zaiga Lieoina of Latvia. (A.By./transl.rt)