EU's Barroso says energy policy status quo is 'not an option' UPDATE

EU's Barroso says energy policy status quo is 'not an option' UPDATE

	Published : Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:13 By : Agencies Print this Story

(Updates with further detail)

BRUSSELS (AFX) - European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said that keeping the 'status quo' on the bloc's energy policy is 'not an option', ahead of a two-day summit with EU member state governments this week that will be dominated by talks on global warning, climate change and security of supply.

'This European Council is much more important than many in the past,' he told reporters.

He hoped governments would agree to the commission's preferred choice to break up operations of large players in electricity and gas markets in a bid to boost competitiveness.

'(We want) full ownership unbundling. We are moving in that direction,' he said.

'I am going to say to the Council what the Commission thinks is the right way to move forward. I cannot take responsibility for what they will decide'.

Other options on the table include an independent regulator, where companies remain as network owners but hive off management operations and receive fees for its use by rivals.

Reports also said that German, French and Benelux companies are considering combining their networks and transferring their management to an independent company to dissuade from the unbundling solution.

Barroso also said it is important for there to be a 'binding target' for the bloc's renewable energy policy.

'It is about sustainability, but also about energy security. The more we have renewable (energies) the less we depend on fossil fuels'.

He added that while the commission is declaring the need for 'overall targets' it would be 'too prescriptive' for the EU executive to impose sector-specific goals.

'This is a process,' he said, on the political will needed to form a pan-EU energy policy.

EU leaders from the 27 member states are set to endorse substantial cuts in carbon dioxide emissions at the summit on Thursday and Friday, German sources told Agence France-Presse.

Governments are expected to agree on cutting CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions by 20 pct from 1990 levels by 2020, promising to go up to 30 pct if emerging economies, in particular China and India, join them, German EU presidency sources said.

This is part of a wider aim of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above the temperature in pre-industrial times.

However, states are divided on the issue of introducing a binding target of 20 pct share for the use of renewable energy sources by 2020, including wind, wave and solar power.

France, Poland and the Baltic states oppose setting a mandatory target in stone, and want to leave it up to member countries to choose their own approach to cutting emissions.

Separately, EU energy ministers reached a conditional agreement last month that biofuels should constitute at least 10 pct of fuels used in new vehicles by 2020.

Ministers agreed that the 10 pct minimum target be achieved by all member states for the share of biofuels in overall EU petrol and diesel consumption for transport by 2020, and should be introduced in a cost-efficient way.

simon.zekaria@thomson.com

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