Brussels, 19/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - Leaked draft guidelines on state aid for energy suggest that the European Commission will cap aid for renewables to the benefit of nuclear power stations, which the Commission denies.
German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung has set the cat amongst the pigeons by reporting on 19 July that Germany opposes the Commission's plans to encourage state aid for the building of nuclear power stations, set out in a leaked Commission working document ahead of a public consultation exercise in the autumn to assess state aid for energy and protection of the environment, warn the ecologists at the European Parliament.
The draft revised state aid rules for state aid for energy comes from an agreement between Competition Commissioner Joaquim Almunia and Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger and would restrict subsidies for renewable energy and allow the subsidising of building new nuclear power stations, explained the Greens/EFA at the European Parliament in a press release on Friday signed by Rebecca Harms, who has seen the leaked document.
Harms, chair the Greens Group at the EP, said that the club of friends of the nuclear industry that is lobbying the two commissioners wants a U-turn in energy policy to favour nuclear, but that is not possible in Germany at the moment, although it is in the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and elsewhere. She said that, under the planned new rules, the building of nuclear power stations would be made profitable and struggling nuclear companies would be boosted with public subsidies over long periods of time. She criticised the way the project had been drawn up on the quiet, with the majority of ordinary people in Europe being kept in the dark about it.
Green MEP Claude Turmes (Luxembourg) said that Commissioner Oettinger can't stand the fact that big energy companies in Germany have control of at least 10% of renewable energy, which is why he wants to replace the current German law on renewable energy, that favours citizens, with a European model of calls for tender in order to remove power from the hands of private individuals, farmers and the middle classes, who own 90% of all renewable power in Germany, and hand it over to the control centres of big energy companies.
Reacting to these rumours at the mid-day question time, the Commission played for time, saying that the talk was about a private preparatory document for a consultation of member states and stakeholders and the Commission does not want to encourage subsidies for nuclear power stations as it is for the member states to decide on where they get their energy from, explained a spokesman for Commissioner Almunia, Antoine Colombani. He said that some member states wanted to subsidise nuclear power stations and the Commission was preparing guidelines on state aid for energy. The public consultation would be held in the autumn, added Colombani, to see whether special rules were needed, but nothing has yet been decided upon.
Commissioner Oettinger swept the matter aside, saying that the preparation for the guidelines on state aid for energy and for environmental protection, and also decisions about support for nuclear energy in Europe needed good, intensive debate and he and his department were working closely with Commissioner Almunia. He said they had received requests from the member states that couldn't be ignored and Almunia would now be consulting with stakeholders before consulting with other parties. He said the EU's aims were to complete the internal market in energy and to encourage green energy and the introduction of the highest safety standards for nuclear power plants in the EU. (EH/transl.fl)