Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-272"
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"en.20001115.12.3-272"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report before us, as we have just heard, is about promoting electricity from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market. This is therefore the first legislative procedure in the field of renewable energy. Commissioner, I would like to express my appreciation to you and your colleagues in the Commission for presenting this legislative proposal.
Another vital point that the committee agreed on was the problem of connection to the grid and access to the grid for renewables. There is no argument about the Commission's proposal to guarantee renewables priority access to the grid. I think that we are unanimous about that. The Commission's general text on the issue of cost sharing in the report makes matters substantially clearer. This is necessary because we can only create legal certainty and avoid disputes through clarification.
Those are the main points I wanted to mention today. I hope that tomorrow this House will take a step forward on the basis of this proposed legislation and our opinion on it, and that you will be able to state, on behalf of the Commission, that you can accept our amendments and that the Council will then be next in line to do its bit!
The proposal for a directive is a logical consequence of the European Union's strategy to double the share of renewables in energy consumption by 2010. As you will see from the committee's report, we agree with the strategy presented in the proposal, which is not to undertake any European harmonisation of support schemes for the time being, but rather to let Member States decide upon support schemes on the basis of nationally set targets and objectives. However, the fact that we accept this strategy does not necessary mean that we accept all the detail. I believe that the committee's report proposes important and essential amendments to the proposed directive.
First, however, I would like to make some preliminary comments about promoting renewables. Many people think that this smacks of subsidies, aids, and financial support for development. In reality, however, support schemes for electricity generation from solar, wind and biomass, for example, are only necessary because at present we are still directly or indirectly subsidising other energy sources, subsidies, which in the energy sector in the past, chiefly benefited pollutant fossil fuels or hazardous nuclear energy, and which continue to be to paid to them to some extent. Such subsidies distort competition. This means that promoting renewables compensates for the external costs of other energy sources, takes into account the positive environmental effects of this type of energy production and, at the same, time makes up for existing distortions in competition.
As long as the external costs of fossil fuels and nuclear energy are not internalised, and as long as other energy sources are subsidised, compensation schemes will be needed for renewables.
In the Commission's proposal and draft report, it is proposing indicative targets for the Member States. Binding individual targets for Member States are only envisaged if the interim reports indicate that compliance with the targets is not meeting the European Union's overall strategy. But we do not have that much time! We need binding targets right now. The European Union and all the Member States entered into commitments at Kyoto because they recognised the dramatic nature of climate change. In The Hague, the western industrialised nations are currently again being pilloried because they are only implementing those commitments half-heartedly. There is no doubt that renewables can make a vital contribution to meeting the binding reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions agreed in Kyoto.
If the commitments entered into were meant seriously, then why not also a commitment to mechanisms which would help to meet those commitments, as I, with the support of the committee, have, after all, built a bridge for the Council and the Member States? These binding national targets are to be worked out within one year, with the assistance of experts from the Member States. This makes it possible for Member States to determine the exact level of their respective contributions to meeting the EU's target, in accordance with the principles of burden sharing, and, in this area, also the sharing of opportunities.
A second important amendment we wish to see is this: the Commission envisages various different targets coexisting over five years. If we define a clear, binding framework for the Member States, then there should be a longer evaluation period for the various support systems required to satisfy these requirements. A 10-year period would put us in a very good position to judge which system is the most successful and efficient.
We want to convince people in Europe to switch to energy sources which nature renews afresh every day, which do not entail any environmental disruption or climate change, and which make a positive contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. So there should not really be any controversy about which types of energy production we mean and define as renewable. We do not therefore seriously want to have to tell the population of our respective regions that domestic waste, which nowadays contains an excessively high proportion of plastic waste, is regarded as a renewable energy source. Would we perhaps then have to call on the public to produce more and more of this waste, which would certainly enable us to meet the targets we have set ourselves? It goes without saying that this would discredit us and the European Union's policy.
I am not against waste incineration, indeed I have even called for a separate directive on this in my report. No, what I am opposed to, as is the committee, is playing with words in a piece of legislation. As you can see, the draft report refers to separated organic municipal waste, because it belongs there. As you can also see, untreated wood and cork waste is regarded as a renewable energy source. Even if only hydroelectric installations with a capacity below 10 MW are to be covered by the support schemes, all hydro will, of course, be regarded as a renewable energy source and will count towards achieving the target. And one more thing I want to make crystal clear: waste incineration is not a renewable energy source and cannot therefore be counted towards meeting the targets."@en1
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