Brussels, 04/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - Ali Rodriguez-Araque, OPEC Secretary General, met the Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for transport and energy, Loyola de Palacio, in Brussels on Monday. Ms de Palacio said that it was essential to combat erratic price movements and everything had to be done to ensure stability, adding that the target price should be around $20 and that it was not in the EU's interests to have either too high or too low prices. She explained that an excessively low price was not good news since it tends to precede a sharp rise and causes obstacles to the implementation of the policies that are required to cut emissions, promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. During their meeting, Ms Loyola de Palacio and Ali Rodriquez discussed the situation facing the oil market and agreed that producer/consumer dialogue would help stabilise prices and that they would do all they could to favour such dialogue. Ms de Palacio again thanked OPEC for its responsible attitude vis-à-vis the impact of the terrorist attacks of 11 September that helped head off a price hike. In the morning, the OPEC Secretary General met with Annemie Neyts of the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers, to discuss the same issues.