Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-17-Speech-4-254"
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"en.20010517.14.4-254"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the EU gas directive was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in June 1998, i.e. nearly three years ago, and entered into force on 10 August 1998. The Member States were required to transpose the directive by 10 August 2000. Since the directive entered into force, all the Member States have transposed it with the exception of France and Germany.
Germany has transposed parts of the directive and is expected to complete transposition in the next few months. The Commission is currently examining the situation in Germany in order to ascertain if further measures are needed in this respect.
On 17 May 2000, the French government tabled a bill to transpose the gas directive. However, this bill has yet to be passed by the French government. Until then no date for final acceptance has been set.
According to the information received by the Commission from the French administration, no decision has been made to postpone the transposition of the directive until 2002. However, contrary to expectations, it was decided not to include the bill in the outstanding order of business of the French parliament for this spring. Even if, as we have been told, this is due to the huge workload of parliament, this delay represents a serious and regrettable development.
The Commission therefore decided on 8 May 2001 to take France to court for failing to transpose the directive. Given the call by the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000 for the liberalisation of the electricity and gas markets to be speeded up and, given the progress made in transposing the directive in the other Member States, it is regrettable that a legal basis for transposing the directive has yet to be created. This is seriously obstructing the development of an internal market and the creation of equal conditions of competition in the European Union.
Even if the delays in the transposition of the gas directive in France are extremely regrettable, they are no reason to relax our efforts to speed up the liberalisation of energy in Europe or to delay the creation of an internal energy market. On the contrary, the delays demonstrate that further steps are needed and that these steps must be selected in a balanced manner in order to safeguard equal terms of competition.
That is why it is especially important for France to get on and transpose the 1998 directive. The new Commission proposals are still important and urgent with respect to competitiveness, low prices for private consumers and employment. The Commission is therefore determined to continue to make decisive progress with this file."@en1
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