Brussels, 02/06/2000 (Agence Europe) - As EUROPE has already briefly indicated, the Energy Council reached an agreement of principal to sign the agreement with the United States on the co-ordination of "Energy Star" programmes concerning energy consumption labelling of office equipment, and to adopt the regulation defining the European dimension of this programme.
The objective of Energy Star is to reduce electricity consumption by around 10 TWh per year in 2015, by stimulating the offer of office equipment (computers, Fax machines, photocopiers, etc.) that are energy efficient. It takes up the standard from the American Environment Protection Agency (EPA), by authorising the voluntary participants in this programme to use the Energy Star logo to identify their products that respect a list of technical specifications. The agreement with the United States foresees procedures to modify the technical specifications or to fight against counterfeiting. Japan, which should participate in the programme, withdrew from the negotiations.
The Regulation must still be adopted by the European Parliament and certain minor points of the agreement must be finalised. Nevertheless, the Commission raised reservations during the Council on the legal basis chosen for the adoption of the Regulation. According to the European executive, the programme must be based on common trade policy (Article 133) that is its sole competency, and not from environmental policy (Article 175), which includes elements of mixed competencies EU/Member States.