Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-18-Speech-3-143"
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"en.20030618.10.3-143"2
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"Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mr Wijkman and the members of the Committee on Development and Cooperation for their useful input. An important report has been developed and improved insofar as development cooperation has been updated and extended to a domain that tended until recently to be governed by free market principles.
From the global perspective in which the Group of the Party of European Socialists approaches the notions of development and cooperation, energy should be seen as a cross-cutting issue in cooperation actions. This is because it is a key aspect of sustainable development.
The energy currently used in both developing and industrialised countries is polluting and environmentally destructive. Substantial resources will be needed to remedy the situation, however. The renewable and alternative sources of energy we advocate are expensive. The Commission must make available the resources required to finance access to renewable energies for developing countries. It would then be possible to integrate the environmental dimension into the development process, and it would not remain a pious declaration of intent.
As Mr Wijkman stated earlier this evening, energy accounts for less than 5% of Community development aid. Public sector involvement in the energy sector is called for. I should emphasise that public investment is also needed, without prejudice to the involvement of private companies in the production and distribution of energy. Access to the latter should be guaranteed by the public sector as an essential service.
In this connection, we cannot endorse the Commission’s decision that priority should be given to promotion of the privatisation of the sector. It should be complementary to public action. Private exploitation of energy sources does not help to alleviate poverty. There are some appalling poverty indicators for African countries that export energy resources such as fossil fuels exploited by private companies. Very often these companies are European. It should be stated that these populations do not have access to electricity, lighting or water. They do not benefit from other more sophisticated uses of energy either. Financial support is therefore needed.
The Commission itself does actually recognise the link between poverty, environmental degradation and energy. The Commissioner referred to this today. Nonetheless, the Commission fails to make bold environmentally-sustainable proposals. We therefore welcome this initiative to work together with developing countries regarding energy. Nonetheless, we regret the lack of a crash programme with additional funding and a proposal that would serve as a legal basis for the action required on this important issue."@en1
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