Brussels, 10/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission adopted its proposal for a directive to the Council and Parliament on promoting electricity from sources of renewable energy (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.9). "This is one of the most important directives in my sphere of competencies", stressed Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, welcoming before the press the unanimous agreement of the college and thanking in particular her colleague responsible for the environment, Margot Wallstroem, for her support.
This directive, which urges the governments of the Union and European industry to make a commitment to increase the use of sources of renewable energy in electricity production, is necessary to enable the Union to live up to the undertakings it made under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change of reducing by 8% its greenhouse gas emissions by 2010, and to multiply twofold (12% against 6%) the share of source of renewable energy in its total gross energy consumption., which means increasing the share of renewable energy from 13.9% to 22%. "This is progress for the safety of the security of supply, and a challenge in favour of employment and the environment", Mrs. de Palacio stressed, stipulating that the Commission's concern of encouraging the production of green electricity would, initially, leave free rein to subsidiarity to allow, later, for the adoption of harmonised European rules. The draft directive rests on three axes: 1) indicative objectives of future green electricity consumption for each Member State; 2) a support regime for the production of green electricity leaving intact current practices in force in the different Member States; 3) binding technical standards.
Mrs. de Palacio stipulated that national goals to be set annually by Member States would have the value of political commitments on their part and that the figures, listed in the directive's annex, had been established on the basis of the most neutral criteria, taking account of the plans each of them adopted, their potential of renewable energy production and the need to spread the efforts among the Fifteen Member States.
"Certain provisions of the directive will allow to remedy the non-binding nature of these objectives, were it to transpire that the Member States were not making sufficient efforts in relation to their potentials", she assured.
Regarding the regimes to encourage production, Mrs. de Palacio explained that the autonomy left up to Member States left room for sufficient experience to be able, from 2005, to "propose a harmonised system, if we observe that a national system is better than another" in terms of competition and efficiency. As for the technical standards, they will consist in the obligation,, for Member States: a) to reduce administrative obstacles to the setting up of plants producing green electricity; b) rationalise their systems of granting licences for the production of this electricity; c) guarantee priority access to the grid, and ensure that the calulation of the cost of connection for new producers is transparent and non-discriminatory.
The Commissioner concluded by expressing the hope that the text could be adopted in a single reading in Parliament so as it can enter force by the end of the year or the beginning of 2001.