Strasbourg, 13/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - By adopting the Tumes/Rapkay and Monbaur reports, Parliament gave a clear signal, on the eve of the Barcelona Summit, in favour of a "regulated liberalisation" of the gas and electricity markets (see yesterday's issue of EUROPE page 14 and 28 February page 12).
In other words, the EP envisages a liberalisation that is controlled and balanced. This way, the consumer will be able to check and choose the electricity s/he consumes thanks to a labelling system indicating where it comes from. Parliament also strengthened the Commission proposal on public service obligations and came out in favour of greater access for decentralised production centres to the networks (such as renewable energy sources and co-generation) by voting for simplified authorisation procedures for all production lower than 15 MW. It also approved of healthy competition that would enable small production units to carve themselves a niche on the market, by voting for the separation of network and production activities. The EP also adopted the amendment to the Turmes report (Greens, Luxembourg) that aims to outlaw the use of funds for dismantling nuclear energy in order to guarantee fair competition between electricity companies (thanks to these funds, EDF, Eon and RWE have been able to buy up operators in the UK, Italy and East European countries). Commission Vice President, Loyola de Palacio, recently indicated that the European Commission would draw up some proposals on the use of these funds before the end of the year. Parliament also gave its approval to the majority of amendments proposed by Bernhard Rapkay (PES, Germany), the rapporteur on the gas aspect of the Directive. These amendments are part of the same approach to that of the electricity Directive. MEPs adopted all the amendments voted on in the Parliamentary Committee on the basis of the Michael Monbaur report (EPP-DE Germany) on network access conditions for cross-border exchanges of electricity. The EP will soon decide on access for suppliers to the networks and on how they will be managed by private companies.