Brussels, 06/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 5 March, the European energy ministers argued in favour of urgent measures to develop the energy infrastructures and fully interconnect the single energy market, in order to secure uninterrupted supply and to break the energy isolation of certain member states from the European networks.
In this context, they welcomed the communication presented by the Commission on 25 February in the framework of its package of proposals to build the Energy Union, to reinforce cross-border electricity interconnections and achieve the minimum objective of 10% of capacity in place by 2020.
“Listening to what the ministers had to say, infrastructure can be seen as the backbone of the Energy Union, particularly if we are to guarantee the free movement of energy”, said the Latvian energy minister and president-in-exercise of the Council, Dana Reizniece-Ozola, summing up the meeting before the press. “The end of this year is the deadline to end the energy isolation of certain member states. For gas and electricity, a great deal of progress has been made, but there are still a number of areas which need to be interconnected as a matter of urgency, several ministers made this quite clear”, Reizniece-Ozola stressed. “The ministers also stressed the need to make important investments to fund smart infrastructure, bearing in mind our climate objectives”, she concluded. The results of this debate will feed into the summary report ahead of the annual growth review 2015.
During the debate, several ministers stressed the need to conclude, as soon as possible, the infrastructure projects of common interest (PCI), for which the first list of 248 projects was concluded in October 2013. Some delegations also called for highest priority to be given to the swift adoption and implementation of the network codes for gas and electricity.
Regional market integration was widely considered an important step to consolidate the single energy market and to achieve the 10% electricity interconnection target by 2020.
The ministers also broadly shared the view that more investments in strategic and smart infrastructure were needed.
In addition to to reiterating the important role of the TEN-E regulation and of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), some ministers highlighted the role of the recently proposed investment plan for Europe, and in particular the creation of a European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), stressing that this fund should complement ongoing EU programmes and support schemes of the EIB.
In this context, several ministers also underlined the need for a stable and predictable regulatory environment and for the administrative burden to be reduced.
The Commission welcomed the holding of the summit on interconnections between France, Spain and Portugal on 4 March, which led to the creation of a high-level group to reinforce the interconnections of south-west Europe (see EUROPE 11268). (Emmanuel Hagry)