Brussels, 26/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - Participants at the Joint Committee Meeting European Parliament - National Parliaments on 24 May, relating to the theme of energy safety and interlinking - agreed it was necessary to have consistent planning in order to modernise and develop EU infrastructure. Opening the work, Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said that no-one should be left to one side when it is a matter of energy supply security. He called for a European Energy Community to be established. European and national parliamentarians all underlined how urgent it was to interlink energy markets in the EU, including the North-South and East-West corridors. There were conspicuous differences, however, over the matter of funding. A number of participants took the view that public funding would be particularly necessary for infrastructure projects that are not viable commercially, while others voiced concern about the risk of distortion. The theme of energy efficiency took up a large part of the discussion, with contributors to the debate supporting the development of smart technology in order to attain the 20% energy savings objective by 2020. On the subject of what solutions would be best, there was unanimous agreement over the use of smart meters and heightened public awareness. Finally, MEPs and MPs agreed on the importance of offshore wind farms and solar projects such as Desertec to facilitate the integration of renewable energy in the European energy system. (E.H./transl.jl)