Brussels, 22/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) adopted opinions on Wednesday 20 January on each of three elements of the summer 2015 package on energy union tabled by the Commission in July of last year (see EUROPE 11356 and 11360).
In an opinion of “new energy market design”, drafted by Lutz Ribbe (Various Interests Group), the EESC welcomes the Commission's recently published public consultation paper as a step in the right direction with many proposed measures potentially helping renewables, consumers, and Europe's regions. It argues, however, for more action from the EU in order to: - ensure that energy prices become more transparent and reflect actual generation and external costs; - enable consumers to become active market participants by providing them with adequate information and resources; - remove obstacles to market access for the rising number of local self-generation and self-supply initiatives.
The EESC opinion on “delivering a new deal for consumers”, on which Ribbe was also the rapporteur, agrees with the Commission on the need to put the consumer at the core of the energy union. In the EESC's view, for consumers to participate actively in the energy market they need access to smart technologies, information, training, and finance. In addition to having the freedom to play an active role in the energy system by having the right to choose and switch easily between both energy producers and distributors, consumers should be given the opportunity to become “prosumers” - that is, also produce and sell energy if the appropriate infrastructure, know-how and a regulatory environment are put in place. The EESC opinion points out that giving consumers more rights and opportunities comes with increased responsibilities for them, too. These responsibilities cannot be imposed but must be learned and developed in practice by all stakeholders. The opinion points out that the growing social problem of energy poverty needs to be addressed by means of appropriate social policy measures.
In its opinion on energy efficiency labelling, prepared by Emilio Fatovic (Workers' Group), the EESC argues for stricter controls on products on sale and for a common Europe-wide system of penalties to be introduced. It believes that labels should also include other consumer information, such as the product's energy consumption and its minimum life expectancy, thus making energy products truly comparable in terms of cost and will discourage planned obsolescence. The EESC recommends that particular attention should be paid to products imported from third countries in order to protect against unfair competition and fraud. It calls for close monitoring of online commerce, an area, it says, that is neglected and where energy labels are not always displayed. The EESC calls for everything possible to be done to make high efficiency products accessible to the most deprived social groups, arguing that this will be one way of dealing with the problem of energy poverty affecting over 50 million citizens across the entire EU. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)