Brussels, 24/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - In the light of the Ukrainian crisis, the European Council of 23 and 24 October gave more consistency to its common programme to reduce energy dependency and increase the security of supply of the EU in the medium and long term. The Twenty-Eight also reiterated their objective to build an energy union, guaranteeing safe, affordable and sustainable energy.
Interconnections - 10% by 2020, 15% by 2030. In its conclusions, the European Council agreed that “all efforts must be mobilised” to achieve the objective of completing the single energy market “as a matter of urgency”. To this end, the Council tasked the Commission and the member states with taking urgent measures to achieve the minimum objective of cross-border interconnections of 10% of existing electricity interconnections - a target laid down at the European Council of Barcelona in 2002! - by no later than 2020, “at least for member states which have not yet attained a minimum level of integration in the internal energy market”, specifically the Baltic States, Portugal and Spain. The Commission will examine all possible sources of funding in order to achieve this, including EU funding, and will regularly report to the European Council on progress towards the 10% objective and towards the longer-term objective, put forward by the Commission in May, of 15% of interconnections by 2020. “Both targets will be obtained via the implementation of PCIs (infrastructure projects of common interest)”, states the European Council. This question has been the subject of bitter negotiations and this wording gives Spain and Portugal the assurance of an EU commitment regarding the funding of their projects.
The member states and the Commission must therefore facilitate the implementation of projects of common interest in order to connect the Baltic States, Spain and Portugal to the European network as a priority, ensuring that this objective is reached by 2020, and they should pay particular attention to remote or less well-connected countries, such as Malta, Greece and Cyprus. Should the implementation of these projects prove insufficient to achieve 10% of cross-border interconnections, new projects should be identified and added as a priority to the revised list of PCIs, and EU co-funding should be considered. The Commission is to present, by March 2015, the best possible options to achieve the 10% target.
Support for critical gas PCIs. Welcoming the Commission's report on the resilience of the energy system of the EU to a gas crisis this winter (stress tests) and its recommendations for short-term measures, to be submitted on 16 October, the European Council added to its conclusions of June of this year on the medium- and long-term measures to improve the EU's energy security. In particular, the Twenty-Eight agreed on the implementation of critical PCIs in the gas sector, in particular the North-South Corridor, the South gas corridor, the promotion of a new gas platform in Southern Europe (an indirect reference to projects off the coast of Cyprus) and key infrastructure projects regarding Finland and the Baltic States. The European Council agreed on the need to improve the mechanisms to ensure a better use of regasification and storage capacity in the gas system to help deal with emergency situations. The Commission is called upon to reinforce its support to ensure better coordination of the efforts to complete crucial PCIs and to develop targeted measures, such as the provision of technical expertise and setting up task forces for specific interconnections. Additionally, the European Council agreed to rationalise the national administrative procedures in line with the orientations to prepare an in-depth response to the issue of critical infrastructure.
The Twenty-Eight also stressed the need to improve the EU's negotiating position, by making full use of the decision to establish an information exchange mechanism on the inter-governmental agreements concluded between the member states and third countries in the field of energy. In this context, the European Council urges the member states and the energy companies involved to submit the relevant information to the Commission and ask for its support throughout the entire course of negotiations, also regarding the prior assessment of the compatibility of the inter-governmental agreements with EU legislation and with its priorities for energy security. The Twenty-Eight also agreed to bolster the energy community and to make use of the EU's foreign policy instruments to guarantee more consistency in the EU's message in its international energy relations.
A flexible system of governance. Lastly, the European Council decided to set in place a system of energy governance to help the EU to achieve its energy policy target with the required flexibility, in full respect of the member states' sovereign choices of energy mix. On the basis of the national programmes for the climate and national plans for renewables and energy efficiency, this system aims to increase transparency and predictability for investors and to facilitate the coordination of national energy policies as well as regional cooperation. (EH, with AN, CG)