Brussels, 10/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - Political commitment to completing integration of the internal energy market by 2014 is still very much on the table at the Council of the European Union.
The 27 stick to the 2014 political objective. Two weeks after the adoption of a strategy by the Council to re-direct energy policy towards considerations more focused on the competitiveness of the EU - which makes completion of the internal market its first pillar - European energy ministers adopted conclusions on 7 June that set out an approach for completing integration of the internal market by implementing common rules and standards by 2014, and for breaking the energy isolation of some member states by 2015. Yet this is also an approach for improving consumer rights. “The Council conclusions adopted today will help bring the rhetoric on the internal energy market a significant step closer to action (…). The details of how to achieve this deadline have now been laid out and we will pursue them as a matter of urgency”, promised Pat Rabitte, the president in office of the Energy Council.
Political commitment from the Pentalateral Forum. On the sidelines of the meeting, energy ministers from the Pentalateral Forum - Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, plus Switzerland - signed a political statement on Friday giving assurances of their commitment to greater integration of the market and to more cross-border cooperation on security of supply in North-West Europe. The objective of this forum (created in 2005) is to improve cooperation between the stakeholders of the countries concerned to create a regional electricity market. The forum has an independent secretariat, the objective of which is to control better the cross-border high voltage grid, and to harmonise allocation methods thanks to information exchanged between the network managers and regulators of the countries concerned. The forum has until now allowed the coupling of wholesale markets. (EH/transl.fl)