Prodi and de Palacio meet directors of seven large oil companies - Towards using reserves?

Brussels, 25/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - European Commission President Romano Prodi and Vice-President Ms Loyola de Palacio met, on Monday afternoon, the leaders of seven large oil companies: BP Amoco, ENI, Norsk Hydro, Repsool, Shell, Statoil and TotalFina-Elf. Speakers gave an overview of how oil prices, prospects and the behaviour of oil companies, etc. have developed. EUROPE recalls that, on Friday afternoon, 29 September, Commissioner Mario Monti will meet the Member State competition authorities to examine the competitive situation in the fuel sector.

These meetings come within the overall context of Commission analyses and initiatives regarding the oil crisis. Ms de Palacio recalled that: a) the tendency against reducing tax, affirmed by the Ecofin Council, does exist, and even the Transport Council has noted it; b) the tax relief decided by some Member States is being examined from the angle of rules on State aid. Four Member States (France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands) have been formally invited to inform the Commission in detail of measures taken, within one month. The Commission will give its opinion bearing in mind, among other things, the excise exemptions enjoyed by some Member States - but these exemptions expire at the end of the year. Any later sectoral exemptions should be proposed by the Commission and approved unanimously by Council; c) from the point of view of competition between oil companies "something is not working well", as the differences between the prices of oil products before taxes from one Member State to the next exceeds 30%; d) the EU must reflect on the eventual use of part of the compulsory reserves of Member States, applying procedures set out in the directive on strategic stocks (consultation must be organised between the Member States, and according to certain rumours, the Council may discuss this at the end of this week); e) the EU is perfectly able to face up to the current crisis if it applies the strategy proposed by the Commission (reproduced in No2205 of our series EUROPE/Documents).