Brussels, 15/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - Welcoming progress in drawing up the EU's energy policy since the March 2006 summit, EU heads of state decided to focus on energy policy at the 2007 Spring Summit. At the Spring Summit, the European Council will adopt an action plan defining priorities for the EU energy policy, which will be an 'overall' policy moving beyond the central issue of secure energy supplies (on which the conclusions of the current EU summit devote a long paragraph but cover no new ground) to include the foreign policy aspects of secure energy supplies. In this connection, the EU25 heads of state welcomed the outcome of their meeting in Lahti, which led to huge progress in terms of ensuring coherent messages are sent by the EU to third countries when it comes to energy. The March 2007 European Council will provide an opportunity for the twenty-seven Member States (Bulgaria and Romania join the EU in January) to reflect on an integrated EU approach to energy and tackling climate change. To this end, the European Commission will be unveiling a strategic analysis on 10 January 2007, which will provide a signficant contribution to the new energy strategy.
More specifically, the European Council conclusions focus on energy efficiency and welcome, in this connection, the Action Plan unveiled by the Commission on 19 October and approved by the European Council (see EUROPE 9313). The European Council also approved the establishment at the beginning of next year of a network of correspondents for secure energy supplies. The network will collect and process energy supply chain information and act as an early warning system to ensure security of supply.
Much of the European Council conclusions document deals with climate change. Based on the recent Stern Report, the EU heads of state agreed that the challenge of climate change is growing as the long-term implications of climate change are becoming clearer, and the cost to the global economy of failing to take action will be far greater than the cost of taking action to tackle climate change. Welcoming the outcome of the recent United Nations climate change conference in Nairobi, Kenya, described as making important progress in moving towards broad agreement for action post-2012, the European Council plans to review post-2012 climate change options in March 2007. On the crucial long-term role of the EU carbon trading system, the Council notes that it is awaiting the upcoming review of the directive concerning the emissions quota trading scheme, which will take effect at the start of the third trading period (due to start in 2013). (eh)