What the Parliament and Council asked for. Is there any way that the problems we have seen in recent weeks over gas could have any other effect than the EU taking on a common energy policy? The principle which leads to, and sometimes makes inevitable, the progress of Europe is well known: crises, imperatives imposed by what is going on in the world at that time, leading to huge bounds forward with European integration generating decisive progress. This time, the evidence is clear for all to see. It is true that the term common policy has not been unanimously decided on in any explicit way, but that is what we are talking about, what is called for. Let's take a look at the facts.
The conclusions of the extraordinary Energy Council last week called for: long-term agreements with the producer countries; a European early-warning mechanism; intra-Community solidarity mechanisms in the event of interruption to supply: the identification of lacking or insufficient interconnections and a programme to put them in place, with the necessary envelope of funding; the diversification of the source of supply and transport routes, to be negotiated with the countries in question. The responsibility for analysing the situation and defining initiatives will belong to the Commission. How it is referred to becomes of secondary importance in the face of the evidence that it is the role of the EU as a body that the ministers are calling for.
The European Parliament was even more forthright and, addressing it, the President of the Commission was, in this case, decisive and determined. It is true that the President of the Council was more circumspect, even somewhat reluctant, about the role of the EU. Mr Topolanek made no bones about the fact that he considers the Treaty of Nice to be better than the Treaty of Lisbon (even though it is the latter which brings in the possibility of the common energy policy), and he said that if a referendum was held in his country, the Treaty of Lisbon would be rejected! He did add, however that the positions defended by himself and his government as President of the Council would not reflect Czech national opinions, but the consensus of the 27. We must have faith in this commitment, and not forget that the Czech Presidency has five and a half months to go, whereas the common energy policy is for the long haul.
And so, let us focus on what the people with many years of European experience said in Strasbourg and: Graham Watson, Martin Schulz, Joseph Daul, Jacek Saryusz-Volski, to say nothing of Mr Barroso, who was highly energetic and very clear. Mr Daul, speaking on behalf of the largest political group of the EP, explicitly referred to the need for a common energy policy; Mr Watson, to a common energy market; Mr Schulz, to the need for European action; Mr Sariusz-Wolski, to a common external policy on energy, which would see the EU speaking with one voice. Even the British Conservative members Giles Chichester and Charles Tannock spoke of an external policy of the EU, adding that this should be based on intergovernmental cooperation.
In reality, cooperation alone is ineffectual: it can disintegrate at any time in the absence of common institutions and European procedures; only Europe as a whole could have any genuine weight at global level in this field. Even the Slovakian and Bulgarian Prime Ministers, having made a national pilgrimage to Moscow out of sheer desperation, are no doubt aware this.
It has to be the Lisbon Treaty. Nobody should be unaware that the much called-for common energy policy can only be achieved through the Lisbon Treaty. Article 4 of this Treaty includes energy among the fields in which shared competency between the EU and the Member States applies; article 122 brings in solidarity in the event of problems with supply; article 170 explicitly refers to the object of the trans-European networks (interconnection and interoperability); article 192 gives the European Parliament and the Council responsibility for legislating in these fields, by means of majority deliberations (with the exception of fiscal aspects); article 194 establishes the principle of solidarity and indicates the objectives of this (including security of supply). It will be a revolution! But the Treaty of Lisbon is not yet in force. The political decision-makers and the people who reject it or are delaying it should, out of decency, moderate their calls for energy solidarity with the others and rule themselves out of common procedures and decisions in this field.
In any case, the common energy policy cannot be improvised. The awareness of the need for it is a thing for the future and represents just one aspect, albeit probably the most positive, of the implications and repercussions of current financial and economic problems. This column will return to these implications tomorrow, without any claims to present a single overview of all elements, but just to give an idea, by summing up the disparate elements which, one by one, are often referred to, and all of which gives food for thought.
(F.R./trans.fl)