Brussels, 18/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 18 May, the Commissioner for Energy, Maros Sefcovic, provided a briefing on the European level initiatives to put the Energy Union into practice.
He began with a European Tour that seeks to promote dialogue with all the different stakeholders as one of the salient points in the Juncker Commission priority initiatives. He explained that “the Energy Union should not and cannot be implemented from Brussels”. He called for “intensive dialogue” with the member states, civil society and European Parliament. This tour of member state capitals began at the beginning of April (see EUROPE 11287) and seeks to show it will bring real benefit, “if we follow a cross-border approach”. The Commission Vice President, indicated, however, that “many obstacles remain”.
In an effort to reduce the number of obligations (more than 200, according to the Commissioner) on member states, he thought it a good idea that a request would be made to the member states to put forward, “one national energy & climate plan for each member state instead of the 200 obligations”, which he believed would create, “better coherence”.
At a legislative level, Maros Sefcovic highlighted the Commission proposals on electricity connections and his vision for a global climate agreement during the UN COP21 conference in Paris, which his counterpart responsible for Climate, Miguel Arias Cañete, presented in February (see EUROPE 11262). He added that before the summer, the Commission would present some further initiatives, as part of a “summer package”, notably on, “communications on electricity market design, on the retail market. And with reviews of the proposals on energy labelling and the Emissions Trading System”. He also indicated that in the second half of year, the European Commission planned to present the circular economy package and “a regulation of the security of supplies including the transparency of the gas contracts”, as well as its strategy for LNG and storage. He explained that in 2016, the Commission would be examining the question of energy efficiency as well as intergovernmental agreements between a member state and a foreign energy provider. These agreements could possibly include “ex ante guarantees” which member states could negotiate in the European perspective.
At a diplomatic level, the Commission intends to comprehensively tackle the energy and environmental challenges that exist. Sefcovic explained that the G-7 summit in June would help pave the way for the Paris conference and in this connection he referred to the discussions attended by Cañete as part of the Petersburg climate dialogue in Berlin. With regard to the question of energy supplies, he said that he hoped that by the end of this decade, the Southern gas corridor would be operational, which would allow for supplies from new sources from the Caspian Sea region.
It should be pointed out that the Commissioner also reiterated his wish for the ongoing TTIP trade negotiations would lead to EU energy imports from the US. In an interview published by the WSJ on Monday, he stated that “We believe that the energy chapter in TTIP…could make a quite important contribution to the mutually beneficial trade exchange, but also to the energy security of the EU”. (Mathieu Bion)