Brussels, 15/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - Ahead of the European Commission's presentation of its proposals for the energy union project, at the end of January, the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament published its vision for this project on Thursday 15 January. According to the Greens, this project must be based on increased energy efficiency and the proactive promotion of renewable energies. According to the Luxembourg Greens MEP, Claude Turmes, “The energy union will be the flagship project for Europe over the coming years and the focus of this union must be on promoting a European 'energy transition'. This means an energy union that focuses on energy efficiency and boosting home-grown secure and safe renewable energies and which can ensure that citizens and municipalities have a real say in and control of the process”. He added that by reducing our dependency on non-EU countries, this energy autonomy project is the best guarantee for our energy security and stability, as well as the best way to create jobs, consolidate our economy and protect the climate. Claude Turmes said that they would be in a position to assess the Commission's determination to propose solutions in this connection.
His French colleague, Yannick Jadot, denounced the “absurd” moves to renationalise European energy policies, under the impetus of the United Kingdom, in particular. The United Kingdom has made promises to promote nuclear energy and shale gas, to the detriment of energy efficiency and renewables. Jadot believes this will be “counter-productive” given the increasing EU energy bill compared to the rest of the world, which stands at €400 billion a year, as well as the increasing climate dislocation. Jadot pointed out that the environmentalists had defined an ambitious energy transition strategy based on participatory energy models, which paved the way to a 100% renewables energy-based Europe by 2050. He concluded that by promoting robust energy efficiency measures, this ambitious strategy could include the creation of 2 million jobs by 2020 and an additional 2 million jobs by 2030. (EH)