Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-05-Speech-2-104"
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"en.19991005.6.2-104"2
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"Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Langen, the rapporteur, on his report on the adoption of the multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community, Altener II. A number of people have made critical comments about the nuclear programme in the Community. Fusion power is perhaps technically renewable energy, nevertheless this is not what we are talking about here. This is a report that originated with the Commission proposal in November 1997 which the last Parliament considered at first reading, in the Robles Piquer report, in February.
Now with the Treaty of Amsterdam we have moved over to codecision and we are having a second reading here today. The major thrust of the report is the demand for the doubling of the amount of renewable energy to 12% by 2010. This is something we clearly support in the Socialist Group, but I am not entirely sure that commitment is accompanied either by the political resources – which is one of the reasons we are asking for the campaign to encourage and foster renewable energy – or, more importantly, by the financial resources. The amount that is being allocated is far too small in my view and does not add up in terms of achieving a doubling. We have EUR 80 million allocated: EUR 30 million for 1998-99 and EUR 50 million for 2000-2002. It seems to me, firstly, that the amount available is far too little and secondly, if we are expecting a doubling of the amount of renewable energy, there should be a sharp increase in the amount of money being made available over a period of time.
In fact, even this may not be allocated given that Amendment No 5 to Article 1(3) (new), actually says that the amount of money might have to be reduced if it is inconsistent with the financial perspective for the period in question.
I welcome Amendment No 6 to Article 2(e)(a) (new) about the need to encourage the export of renewable energy technologies from the European Union and to encourage the European Renewable Energies Export Council.
In conclusion, a number of short points: renewable energies cannot be shoe-horned into the current thinking of energy suppliers, who are trained to see energy production as always being large scale and costing hundreds or thousands of millions of euros in terms of each project. Many will be small, community-based schemes which will be site-specific, whether using wind, waves, solar power, combined heat and power or even biomass. That means, if we are to encourage lots of small schemes, that we need even more money.
Secondly, if we are serious about exports we should also pay some attention to renewable energy sources in which we in the European Union have a technological lead, which is not necessarily the case here. One of which I am aware of is ocean thermal energy conversion that uses the temperature difference between the cold bottom waters of the tropics and the warm surface waters. We have a lead in Europe but we are not encouraging that. If we want to export these technologies we need to make sure that the resources are available."@en1
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