Brussels, 18/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - At the spring European Council on 19-20 March, the heads of state and government are expected to approve the strategic framework tabled by the European Commission on 25 February for constructing the Energy Union project. The heads of state and government are expected to focus particular attention on certain key aspects of the five interdependent dimensions of this framework - energy security, the internal market, moderating demand, decarbonising the economy, and research and innovation. A lively debate is especially expected on the thorny issue of the transparency of gas contracts.
“This Energy Union has five closely interrelated and mutually reinforcing dimensions. At our forthcoming meeting, I would like to focus our discussion on certain aspects of the Energy Union, linked in particular to energy security, [the] internal market and climate diplomacy. These are issues on which we can bring immediate value added”, European Council President Donald Tusk states in his letter of invitation to the EU heads of state and government. Tusk was one of those who promoted the Energy Union project in April 2014 when he was prime minister of Poland (see EUROPE 11065).
In the conclusions (the draft text of which was circulating on Wednesday 18 March and is expected to be modified), the European Council will call for electricity and gas infrastructure projects to be accelerated, hailing the recent agreement between France, Spain and Portugal to strengthen their interconnections and to implement legislation fully on the internal energy market. The European Council will also call for the legislative framework to be strengthened on the security of electricity and gas supply, while underscoring the role of indigenous resources and low carbon technology (such as nuclear). In addition, it will call for legislation on emissions reduction to be re-examined and developed, and will call for energy efficiency and renewable energy, so as to reach the agreed objectives for 2030.
A more delicate issue is that the European Council must also find an agreement for more transparency in public and private gas contracts in order to ensure the agreements made with third country suppliers fully conform with EU law and EU priorities on energy security, while respecting the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information. The agreement should be found on the basis of the Commission-proposed strategy, in which the Commission envisages reforming the information mechanism on gas contracts to establish an obligatory pre-consultation mechanism whereby the Commission must be consulted by the member states before they sign an intergovernmental agreement with a third country. This causes several member states to bristle.
The European Council is also expected to recommend assessing the possibilities for voluntary demand aggregation mechanisms (a concept better known as the common purchase of gas) which should be totally in line WTO and EU competition rules.
The 28 EU member states will also give their green light to the Commission developing a more flexible and efficient organisation, which is expected to go hand in hand with enhanced regional cooperation and which is expected to enable renewable energy to be integrated in the grid, while ensuring the compatibility of public intervention with the internal market and respect for the sovereign choice of the energy mix.
The European Council will also recommend developing a strategy on innovation, and energy technologies focusing on the next generation of renewables.
In addition, the European Council will call for strong coordinated action through an active European diplomacy on energy and climate, ahead of the UN climate conference (COP 21) in Paris in December. (Emmanuel Hagry)