Brussels, 22/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Latvian Minister for the Economy, Dana Reizniece-Ozola, confirmed to the industry and energy committee of the European Parliament, on Thursday 22 January, that the planned Energy Union will be central to the programme of the Latvian Presidency of the next six months.
“In particular, we will focus on setting in place a resilient, strong and complete Energy Union. We hope to stimulate in-depth discussions on this”, said Reizniece-Ozola. The Latvian Presidency will oversee the launch of debates, in early February, on the basis of proposals pledged for the end of this month by the vice-president of the Commission responsible for the dossier, Maros Sefcovic. The aim is to lay down a plan, this semester, for the implementation of the project. The Energy Union will dominate the agenda of the meetings of the Energy Council of 5 March and 8 June. In advance, the Presidency will hold a high-level conference in Riga on 6 February, to be attended by European ministers and representatives of the stakeholders, to launch the 'Riga process' to set Energy Union in place.
At the same time, the Latvian Presidency will feed into debates on the completion of the single energy market, paying particular attention to the question of infrastructure. It will also oversee the implementation of the new European strategy on energy security, on the basis of Commission proposals and the conclusions of the European Council of October 2014. Riga hopes to assess the measures implemented in the short term and make a contribution to developing medium and long-term actions.
Lastly, the Latvian Presidency hopes to launch the work on the EU's system of energy governance, in the context of the energy/climate framework for 2030 laid down by the European Council of October 2014 and anticipating the results of the UN climate conference to be held in Paris in December 2015. With regard to this, the Presidency hopes to emphasise the advantages of regional cooperation, on the basis of the Baltic energy market integration plan, BEMIP. This dossier will be discussed at an informal meeting of the Energy Council, in Riga from 14 to 16 April. (EH)