Brussels, 18/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - Energy Union Commissioner Maros Sefcovic wants to explore the option of the common purchasing of gas and backs a gradualist approach. He was speaking at a conference on energy policy in Brussels on Monday 17 November.
“We should … explore common purchasing of gas” said Sefcovic, advocating a “gradual step-by-step approach”. The EU has to pay a bill of almost €400 billion per year for imported fossil fuels, he reminded his audience.
The common purchasing of gas is a key part of the energy union project, as set out by his predecessors, former Commission President Jacques Delors of France and former European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek of Poland and, more recently, former Polish Prime Minister and soon to be European Council President Donald Tusk. Sefcovic and his colleague at energy and climate, Miguel Arias Canete, promised to explore this issue during their term of office.
Within the framework of its energy security strategy proposed in May, the Commission has considered the matter. Since then it has indicated that its favoured approach would be a voluntary arrangement among member states rather than something legally binding.
On Monday, Sefcovic also stressed the need to implement the third legislative package on liberalising energy markets. The guiding principle of the third package is the unbundling of production and distribution activities from those of transport, which for the moment, at least, kicks the South Stream gas pipeline project, led by Russian gas group Gazprom, into the long grass in the EU.
Sefcovic confirmed that he was already thinking about a new gas agreement between Russia and Ukraine for the period after March 2015. In an interview for Ukrainian television last weekend, he said he felt it necessary “not to wait (the expiry of the package for the supply to Ukraine of Russian gas for the winter of 2014-2015 that was reached in the trilateral agreement brokered by the Barroso Commission) to find a solution for the post-winter scenario”. (EH)