Brussels, 25/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 25 February, four months after the Juncker Commission entered into force, the European Commission unveiled the ambitions of its strategy for Energy Union - a project which the Juncker Commission has made an overarching priority in its mandate. The Energy Union strategy aims to ensure the free movement of energy, increased solidarity between the member states, and transition towards a low carbon economy - by placing citizens at the centre of the project and by involving neighbouring countries.
“Today, we launch the most ambitious European energy project since the Coal and Steel Community [ECSC]. This project could relaunch the project for European integration as the ECSC did in the 1950s”, European Commission Vice-President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic told a fully-packed press conference. “A project that will integrate our 28 European energy markets into one Energy Union, make Europe less energy dependent and give the predictability that investors so badly need to create jobs and growth”, he added, underling the Commission's determination “to now turn this Energy Union into reality”.
Through this project with its “holistic” approach (because it integrates different EU policies - including energy, industry, transport, climate, research and innovation, regional policy), the Commission first intends to make the free movement of energy into “the fifth European freedom”, Sefcovic and European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete explained. The strategy for Energy Union aims to ensure the free movement of energy across borders by strictly monitoring the application of EU rules on the internal market, including the unbundling of activities in the energy sector and the independence of regulators, and by having recourse to legal action when EU competition law is not respected. This objective also includes redefining an electricity market which is more interconnected, more responsive and which better integrates renewable energies, and it includes an in-depth reorganisation of public intervention (eliminating regulated tariffs) and the gradual removal of subsidies that are harmful to the environment, Sefcovic and Arias Canete stated.
The strategy for Energy Union also aims to reduce the EU's strong dependence on its external suppliers (53% of the energy consumed is imported, with an annual bill of around €400 billion) by continuing the efforts at diversifying EU energy supply routes and sources. It will do this while ensuring increased solidarity between member states (including taking neighbouring countries in charge that are totally dependent on a single supplier in cases where supply is broken off), and by ensuring increased transparency in intergovernmental agreements between member states and third-country suppliers on energy supply.
Lastly, the strategy aims to boost the EU's transition towards a low carbon economy by giving the priority to energy savings, “treated as a source of energy in itself”, and by being based on the development of the next generation of renewables technology and becoming a leader in electromobility.
The package of proposals tabled by the Commission includes a strategic framework with 15 actions covering the five inter-related dimensions of the project - energy security, completing the internal market, restraining energy demand, decarbonising the economy, and research and innovation - and a roadmap for implementing it. Among the 15 actions - details of which can be found in EUROPE 11260 - are: examination of the regulatory framework of the third internal market liberalisation package; revision of the regulation on the security of gas supply; revision of the information mechanism on gas contracts; continuation of the ongoing work on diversification (the South-European gas corridor and the Mediterranean energy platform) and a strategy for LNG; a legislative measure to redesign and reorganise the electricity market; review of the relevant legislation and an increase EU financial support for energy efficiency; review of the strategy on heating and cooling; a new series of measures for renewables, including a new policy for biomass and biofuels; a package of measures on road and electromobility transport; a refocusing of the strategy for developing energy technologies.
The strategic framework is accompanied by an implementation plan for strengthening interconnections - details of which can be found in EUROPE 11261 - and a roadmap for the UN climate conference in December 2015 (see other article).
Common purchase of gas option being withdrawn. A key element of the concept of Energy Union, tabled by former Polish prime minister and current European Council President Donald Tusk - the creation of a pool for the common purchase of gas - seems to be being withdrawn from the proposed strategy. On Wednesday, Sefcovic stated that the Commission will assess the possibilities of aggregating demand, on a voluntary basis, with a view to effecting collective orders for gas during a crisis and when the member states are dependent on a single supplier - any measure of this type having to be fully in line with WTO rules and EU competition rules. (Translation from the original French version)