Brussels, 18/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - Swiss Energy Minister Doris Leuthard will be in Brussels on 19 April for talks with Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, who is keen to see Switzerland join the internal energy market.
Negotiations on an bilateral EU-Switzerland energy agreement are continuing to make progress, Oettinger says, highlighting the significant benefits joining the internal energy market would bring the Swiss Confederation. “We might know this year whether or not an agreement will be possible, whether Switzerland will become a member of the energy community”, said the energy commissioner in German-language dailies Tages-Anzeiger and Der Bund on 17 April. He said that a free market in electricity with unified rules would be attractive to both parties. For Switzerland, exporting electricity generated by pumped storage stations to regions of high energy consumption could be viable, but if Bern decided not to accept the EU rules the electricity network could also be built without Switzerland, he stated. “This is not a threat. But it stands to reason that, for us, internal rules are important if we are now putting a pan-European electricity network in place. Investors will tend to build this network going through France, Italy or Austria rather than through Switzerland if the economic conditions of the European internal market are not met”, he said.
On Tuesday, Oetringer will discuss the timetable for the next stage of operations with his Swiss counterpart Leuthard. Negotiations on the EU-Switzerland agreement opened in 2006. The agreement is to regulate the transit of electricity between the EU and Switzerland and reciprocal market access.
At the end of January, the Swiss Federal Council backed negotiation of a new package of agreements Bilateral III. The EU, however, would prefer the conclusion of a framework agreement incorporating the content of previously concluded sectoral agreements, and that, in future, these agreements be automatically adapted to take account of the constant development of the acquis communautaire in order to safeguard the homogeneity of the internal market. The Association of Swiss Electrical Businesses (AES) is against the inclusion of a bilateral EU-Switzerland agreement on electricity in the new Bilateral III package, as Bern would like to see, fearing that this option might complicate the conclusion of such an agreement and delay it by several years. The Swiss electrical companies would like a stand-alone bilateral agreement on electricity. (E.H./transl.rt)