Brussels, 27/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - In response to questions put by journalists on 26 June, Loyola de Palacio, Vice-President of the Commission responsible for energy and transport, confirmed that she was preparing a legislative proposal to organise the situation of coal production before expiry of the ECSC Treaty, in July 2002. The declaration is along the same lines as the Green Paper on EU energy supplies (see EUROPE of 29/11/2000) and confirms the importance attributed by the Commission to forming a minimum base of fossil energy production in order to reduce the EU's energy dependency on outside sources. It also meets the repeated demand of the ECSC in favour of keeping up a certain level of coal production in Europe (EUROPE will come back to this).
Ms de Palacio, though stressing that aid to the coal sector should be gradually phased out by the year 2010, affirmed that it is important to maintain a strategic reserve, including after 2010, which means keeping a certain part of the infrastructure in place and safeguarding the relevant professional qualifications and technological experience. It is in this perspective that she will present, in the next few weeks, a proposal aimed at creating a base of primary subsidised energies, composed of coal and renewable energy sources. Ms de Palacio specified that the use of coal must be compatible with protection of the environment. "This is why research and technological development are so important, mainly for developing clean coal production techniques", she stressed.