Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-24-Speech-1-079"
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"en.20070924.16.1-079"2
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"Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate Ms Thomsen on her excellent report. Renewable energy has always been high on the agenda of the European Parliament, and now Member States are also increasingly aware of the need to strengthen their performance in this field.
To sum up, the new legislative framework on renewable energy sources should ensure that we reach the EU-wide target of 20% by 2020. This will require serious investments to be made, a regulatory framework and, most of all, strong political will. I believe that this report gives us confidence in it.
I would like to come to the last point. There have been doubts expressed that the Commission intends to let nuclear energy count towards the renewables target. Can I say clearly that this is not, and never has been, the case. The 20% target of the renewable energy in the final EU energy consumption will only be met by renewable energy. Nothing in the internal market package adopted last week, or the forthcoming directive on renewable energy, changes this.
Honourable Members, you have been our strong support in creating a European response to the global energy challenge. I count also on the support of the European Parliament for the legislative proposal of the Commission. But I get more and more encouragement coming from Member States. Today, Gordon Brown, at the Labour Party Conference, said, ‘by investing in energy efficiency, renewables, carbon capture, clean fuels and new environmental technologies, I want Britain to lead in carbon-free vehicles, carbon-free homes and carbon-free industry. And I want the new green technologies of the future to be the source of British jobs in British businesses.’ The only difference is that I want it to happen in the whole of Europe.
Constantly increasing the use of renewable energy resources is one of the main pillars in European policy to achieve sustainable, competitive and secure energy supplies. Therefore, Ms Thomsen’s report will play a crucial role in the formulation of the Commission’s proposal for promotion of the use of renewable energy that I intend to present to the College by the end of this year. I would just remind you that Mr Vidal-Quadras’s report played a huge role in the formulation of our package on the internal energy market.
I am pleased to say that my approach in preparing the proposal is already very much in line with most of the calls from Parliament. I would like to mention that the proposal will be adopted together with the greenhouse gas reduction and emission trading scheme proposals. We will continue the integrated approach from the January package to ensure consistency between renewable energy and climate change policies, and create synergies between them.
Now I would like to turn to some concrete points of this report to discuss them in more detail.
I share your view that the completion of the internal energy market is a very important issue in our energy policy, and it is indispensable that renewables are rapidly integrated into the internal energy market. That is one of the reasons why the Commission adopted the third internal market package on Wednesday. Access to the grids is an essential precondition for the successful integration and expansion of electricity generation from renewable energy sources, as well as objective, transparent and non-discriminatory authorisation procedures.
You rightly pointed out the importance of reaching an agreement soon on assigning a share to each Member State to achieve the 20% binding target for the whole EU in 2020. As you would expect, the methodology to be applied is quite a politically sensitive issue. We are currently working on the proposal and the Commission is discussing this topic with Member States. It is vital that the national targets are established in a fair and transparent way. But just as important is the establishment of a trading scheme which can give the needed flexibility, and to ensure that this will work in an EU-wide market. This will also contribute to our goal of producing renewable energy cost effectively.
I agree with you on the importance of creating and implementing national action plans. National action plans submitted by each Member State and approved by the Commission should contain the national sectoral targets, the development paths in each sector and measures to be taken in order to reach these targets. The Commission will assess the national action plans based on specific requirements and criteria laid down in a new directive.
I agree that renewable energy sources in the heating and cooling sector have to experience a significant growth, and this has to be ensured by the legislative framework. The intention is to cover this sector in the directive as well. Many heating and cooling renewable technologies are highly economical and there is a lot of potential in this area.
I welcome the support of your report on the minimum 10% biofuels binding target. I agree with you that we have to ensure that biofuels are produced in a sustainable way. The Commission will include measures on biofuel sustainability in its proposal. These measures are not aimed at limiting biofuel imports, but the standards would apply equally to domestically produced biofuels and imports as well."@en1
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