Energy Policy Topics during the German Council PresidencySecure, environmentally sustainable, and competitive energy supplies are prerequisites for the positive economic development of Europe. A focus of the European Spring Council 2007 during the German EU Council Presidency will be the adoption of an Action Plan on an "Energy Policy for Europe" containing measures categorized in the order of their priority importance. The aim of the Action Plan is to achieve progress on the goals of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Employment, and to take account of the challenges of climate change. The European Council will therefore conduct an integrated debate on energy and climate policy.
For January 2007 the European Commission has announced the presentation of an "Energy Package" in preparation of the Spring Summit. Important parts of the Energy Package will presumably be the first Strategic Energy Review and Communications on individual dossiers.
The Renewable Energy Road Map will presumably contain proposals related to the objectives of an EU-wide expansion of the share of energy consumption accounted for by renewable energies beyond the year 2010. The aspects of supply security, competitiveness, and environmental protection are to be considered as well as existing long-term national goals and the current state of their implementation. In addition, the Renewable Energy Road Map is also to outline thoughts on possible farther-reaching measures. There is discussion, for example, of renewable energies having 20% of the EU's primary energy consumption by the year 2020.
Unlike the electricity (Directive 2001/77/EC) and fuel (Directive 2003/30/EC) sectors, there are currently no European provisions for promoting the use of the renewable energies in the heating/cooling fields. But Europe-wide provisions are of great importance against the background of the large potential of renewable energies in the field of heating and cooling and the possibilities of contributing to supply security by substituting for fossil fuels (particularly oil and gas). In this connection, account should also be taken of consequences in terms of cost; also of the minimization of additional bureaucracy in the framework of the assistance measures to be adopted. Whether and when the proposal for a draft directive is submitted is presently an open question.
The Report will presumably outline the trend taken by bio-fuel policy, analyze the economic and environmental effects, and offer suggestions on further developing this field of policy. In addition, a draft directive to amend the Bio-Fuel Directive has been announced for 2007. In the European discussion, for example, there is thought of setting a binding bio-fuel target of 8% for the year 2015. Important in this connection are European standards for bio-fuel. These now allow the maximum addition of 5% bio-diesel and 5% bio-ethanol to petrol; respective increases of these levels to 10% are also now being discussed at EU level.
On the basis of respective reports by the Member States, the European Commission will submit to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers at the beginning of 2007 a summary of the transposition of Directive 2001/77/EC on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market. The report will analyze the progress made by all of the Member States in developing renewable energies' contribution in the electricity market.
In addition, discussion will begin on the communication to be completed by the end of 2007 on the progress made by Member States' systems for promoting electricity production from renewable energies. One of the focuses of the communication will be to specifically discuss whether the Commission will propose another framework for assistance provisions, including their possible harmonization. In this context, appropriate transitional periods are to be observed. In the context of the Road Map, new targets will be discussed for the European Union and the individual Member States for the time after 2010. Longer-term goals are important to give industry an orientation for the further development of the renewable energies and thus create investment security.
Already in its interim report of February 2006 on the sector inquiry on the competitive situation in the electricity and gas sectors, the European Commission named market concentration, vertical integration, and price formation as some of the competitive obstacles. The German Council Presidency will push forward with the careful analysis of the final report, announced for January 2007, with the goal of arriving at final conclusions already at the Council of Energy Ministers in June 2007.
Also in January 2007, the Commission will submit its report on the implementation and functionality of the internal electricity and gas market. The analysis will be undertaken under the German Council Presidency, among others forums, in the framework of the High Level Workshop in March of 2007. The German Council Presidency is working to ensure that the June meeting of the Council of Energy Ministers can draw conclusions from the Commission's report.
In the interest of consumers, progress must be made on the internal electricity and gas market. To this end, the existing set of instruments must be optimally used at national and Community levels. Only after these possibilities have been exhausted should new legislative measures be considered.
Upon the instruction of the European Council, the European Commission is drafting a plan for promoting cross-border grid lines, the Priority Interconnection Plan, to overcome present capacity bottlenecks in the interest of better integrating the markets. The Commission intends to adopt a corresponding Communication to the Council and Parliament at the beginning of January 2007. Under the German Presidency, the Council will take a close and detailed look at the Commission's evaluation and proposals.
With modern power station technologies using coal and gas as the power sources, work is being carried out in two main directions in a long-term development program. On the one hand, the efficiency potentials of classic power station concepts are to be exploited in the magnitude of up to 20% of the present state of the art. A further step is the development of new power station concepts leading up to a "zero emission" power station with CO2 sequestration and storage.
Article 40 of the Euratom Treaty authorizes the European Commission to submit quantitative and qualitative reports on the current situation and future development of the nuclear power industry. The latest PINC, the sixth since 1958, is published in the framework of the European Energy Strategy. Substantive focuses are nuclear power's development and investment prospects in the Member States and the importance of nuclear energy for assuring in the long-term a sufficient supply of energy and guaranteeing environmental protection, particularly the reduction of CO2 emissions in Europe.
For the end of 2007, the presentation of a first European Strategic Energy Technology Plan will probably be announced.
Further important topics with regard to the spring summit are:
The Action Plan on Energy Efficiency was published (by the European Commission on October 20, 2006) already under the Finnish Presidency. Energy efficiency will also be an important sector during the German Presidency. Topics of significance are, for example, effective measures to reduce standby-losses of appliances and faster adaptation to the economical state of the art of energy-needs labelling and maximum-use rules. Furthermore, consumers are to be made more conscious of the need for a responsible use of energy.
An important topic will be the EU's external energy relations, that have already been addressed by the Finnish EU Presidency. In this area, no further Communications by the European Commission are anticipated. Rather, existing proposals will be further developed and transposed. Elements during the German EU Council Presidency will, for example, be the anchoring of energy collaboration by the European Union and Russia, the enlargement of the energy community with Southeast Europe, and the establishment of a network of energy-security correspondents and development of better cooperation in the face of supply crises. In general, the dialogue and cooperation with producer, transit, and large consumer countries is to be fostered and coherence strengthened.
EU-site of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology: www.eu2007-wirtschaft.de/
