Pamplona, 29/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Meeting up at their informal seminar on the weekend in Pamplona, EU Energy Ministers agreed on the need to rapidly resolve the problem of the lack of cross-border energy network inter-connections within the EU. If the problem is not resolved it risks compromising the whole internal energy market. Discussions also focused on renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. Commissioner for Energy, Loyola de Palacio, told them in no uncertain terms that if Europe renounced nuclear energy, if would be unable to meet its Kyoto Protocol commitments. OPEC General Secretary, Ali Rodriguez assured Europeans that his organisation would keep oil prices within the agreed price band.
Ministers agreed upon the need to make the administrative procedures for infrastructure construction projects more flexible, which would allow more cross-border inter-connections, which would allow for the creation of an authentic internal energy market. While recognising the many efforts to liberalise the energy markets, Ms de Palacio said that they could all be in jeopardy if there was no significant increase in inter-connections. The Commissioner agreed that they had made progress in discussions on the Commission's proposal made last year that aimed to reduce the bottlenecks that were strangling transEuropean transport networks (see EUROPE 20 December 2001 page 10), a proposal that also sought to bring Community co-funding for priority projects up from 10%-20%. Decisions on this issue will be taken at the Seville Summit, indicated Ms de Palacio to the Spanish Secretary for Energy, José Folgado, who stressed that the problem of interconnections that affected all European countries should be sorted out in the "short term" and that electric interconnections needed to be "enormously" increased between Member States.
Taking into account the Union's energy dependence and environmental constraints, Member States reached agreement on the need to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Pointing to the current trend to increase renewable energy sources, particularly by wind power and biomass fuels, Ministers reviewed their advantages: contributing to safeguarding demand, the possibility of installing centres in less developed regions, stimulation and use of new technologies - these last two advantages are likely to improve the vitality of the outlying regions and help job creation. But in order to really take advantage of "clean energy", Member States believe that it will be necessary to reduce costs in order to increase competition. As for energy efficiency, Ministers appealed for a rationalisation in the behaviour of industry, particularly in the transport sector, considering that proposals in view of improving energy efficiency are supposed to be centred on a deepening of the liberalisation process, the setting up of mechanisms that will allow prices to reflect real costs and increased efforts to support the use of less polluting means of transport.
The European Commission is committed to promoting renewable energies and called for Europe to conserve its nuclear capability for producing electricity. A few days after announcing the Commission's intentions to impose strict standards on nuclear safety (see EUROPE 24 April page 9), Loyola de Palacio asserted in Pamplona that it was impossible to respect the Kyoto Protocol if they renounced nuclear power and if they did renounce it they would be renouncing Kyoto. People had to understand this, she added in a press statement. She was accompanied on this occasion by Donald Johnson, OECD Secretary General. Banging home the message, she stressed that any renunciation of nuclear power would be a "grave error".
In the Navarra capital, the EU won the assurance of Ali Rodriguez, Secretary General of OPEC, that the cartel would respect it commitment to keep oil prices in the 22-28 dollar a barrel band, at its next meeting on 26 June in Vienna.