Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-13-Speech-3-276"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank Mr Linkohr for his excellent report, which is in line with the Communication on the oil supply that the Commission adopted in October 2000, which in turn continued an initial statement that had been passed on to the Council previously in September. I would like to also point out that in the mean time the Commission has adopted the Green Paper on the security of energy supplies which is so closely linked with this document and, of course, with Mr Linkohr’s report.
Finally, and given the growing demand for oil from the transport sector, we need to re-balance the relative importance of modes of transport, and this is going to be one of the focal points, if not the focal point, of the White Paper that I hope will be adopted by the Commission in the next few weeks.
Finally, the Commission also aims to promote support for the new generation of vehicles and alternative fuels, and we will soon present a communication on alternative fuels, which has been discussed here, and a directive in which we will put forward a proposal on the minimum level of use of biofuels and another on tax relief measures to encourage the use of biofuels.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, the oil crisis has awakened and stirred public opinion on the problem of energy. However, this crisis comes at the same time as other major challenges. I am thinking about issues such as our increasing foreign dependence and the problem of climate change. All this has led us to engage in a debate, an overall, systematic and comprehensive discussion through the proposals put forward in our Green Paper.
I understand that with this debate and the motion for a resolution in Mr Linkohr’s report we are laying the foundations for what should be the conclusions of the future Green Paper and, in this respect, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur once again on the excellent work that he has done and thank all of you for your contributions.
I would like to say that today, although we are not in such as tense situation as we experienced last autumn, the reality is that brent prices are reaching 30 dollars per barrel and that, following the conclusions of OPEC last week, the price situation continues to be a cause for concern.
The cause of this volatility can be determined to a large extent, and currently it is mainly due to the low level of reserves, which have been historically low since the winter of 1999/2000. However, it is, without doubt, also due to something else which is the lack of transparency in the oil markets. In this respect, as Mr Linkohr rightly points out and has put as the first point in the motion for a resolution that he is presenting to Parliament, dialogue with the producing countries, whether or not they are members of OPEC, is an obligatory step to take in order to solve the problem of the instability of oil prices.
In this respect, we need to be able to make a joint commitment that will enable us to make an analysis of the markets with these countries and establish a permanent dialogue. As Mr Purvis said, it is not about only talking when there is a shortage of oil and the prices are very high, but also when the prices are low. This would therefore maintain a connection that would enable us to offer transparency for the market and maintain a greater stability of prices, which is in the interests both of producer and consumer countries.
In this context, the key issue is that Europe should be able to speak with one voice and that we should not find ourselves, as unfortunately sometimes happens in the field of energy, with a country taking a position that is outside what was agreed the day before – and this happened not long ago. In this context, facilitating the development of production within the European Union, as has been said here and is advocated in the motion for a resolution, but also in countries outside OPEC and not in the European Union, would benefit the Union. This includes issues such as cooperation on energy between the European Union and Russia, through the dialogue launched by President Prodi at the European Union-Russia summit on 30 October in Paris.
However we can say, in any case, that our options for energy policy should be focused on controlling demand, both in terms of oil and the other energy sources. On the one hand, our energy sources are limited, on the other hand, neither can we forget our commitments on the environment (and I am talking in particular about our Kyoto commitments) on which we undoubtedly have a different position to the United States.
But going back to our Communication, aside from the dialogue that we referred to at the start, it stresses increasing the coherence of national policies between the different countries of the Union. We must, therefore, consolidate our common approaches, both in terms of the strategic reserves and taxation. We need to strengthen the mechanisms of strategic oil reserves by pooling them, and secondly, in terms of taxation, as Mr Linkohr’s report rightly says, we need to resist the temptation to absorb the rise in oil prices through a reduction in tax on oil products.
Such an approach would go against our objectives in terms of the environment, particularly those arising from the Kyoto Protocol, and would mean transferring tax resources to the producing countries. As a result, we should think more about bringing the special taxes in the different Member States more in line with each other and, in this respect, I think that we should move towards a broad range as the most appropriate option, whereby there could be a combination of a certain margin for the countries of the Union but, at the same time, with greater coherence and fewer distortions.
I would like to mention reducing the impact of oil on the European economy and, consequently, controlling demand, and remind you, first of all, that although it says in paragraph 23 of your motion for a resolution that we are going to present an energy saving plan in Gothenburg, ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to present it. What we plan is, as part of the Green Paper that is being discussed in Parliament, a series of energy saving measures. What we will do in Gothenburg is present one of the proposals in an articulated manner. For example, a proposal on improving the energy performance of buildings, a sector in which, as one of the speakers said, there is a great deal of potential for saving energy."@en1
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