Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-04-Speech-3-341"
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"en.20090204.18.3-341"2
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"All these questions are about issues which we are discussing almost on a daily basis now. On the Lisbon Treaty, we all know that it contains solidarity formulas which should help us to enforce the legal framework for better cooperation in the area of energy within the EU. That is one part of the story.
At the same time I think we have learnt some lessons during the current crisis. One thing is the solidarity as a political slogan. The other one is the need to react quickly in a time of crisis and to respond, for example, to a difficult situation which we had in Bulgaria or Slovakia during the crisis. So we need to have some improvement of the interconnections in particular in Central and Eastern Europe in the area of gas supplies. We need to have a compressor on the pipeline to be able to reverse the flow. For example, my country has it because it modernised and invested, but the Slovaks did not.
So that brings me to your question as to whether there is some investment programme to cover short- or medium-term needs – there is. In fact, today I had some meetings with the respective chairs of the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy as well as the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, because EUR 5 billion remains, which was not spent last year, and it has been agreed within the European Economic Recovery Plan to allocate that for some infrastructure projects. As far as the Commission has proposed late last month, EUR 3.5 billion out of those five should be allocated to the interconnection projects which can be realised in the next two years, 2009 to 2010, in the area of gas connections, electricity grid interconnections and connecting gas with the offshore wind turbines in the north of Europe.
So, yes, there is a plan and my view on Nord Stream is that there is a debate, we all know that. I think one lesson of the current crisis between Moscow and Kiev is this: that we should have the means to make it possible to solve these problems if they are repeated, both regarding Russia and Ukraine.
There is the Nabucco project, which should be able to bring gas to Europe from countries other than Russia, in other words the Caspian Basin. But we also should be able to diversify the transit route of gas to Europe so that this is not just one country. I think, in this respect, Ukraine is serving us as the only terrestrial supplier.
So there are some concerns about the possible environmental impact. Some Member States are raising the question, so there is no secret about that, but I think that at the end of the day we need to have diversification of both routes and suppliers."@en1
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