Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-12-Speech-1-078"
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we should regard this directive as a contribution to a coherent and holistic energy policy in Europe. What this means is that it is concerned with better protection for the environment, with greater security of supply and also with coherence in the internal market in energy. I want, briefly, to highlight the point about security of supply. We are too dependent upon oil imports, and cogeneration makes it a very simple matter, in a very short space of time, to do without oil for domestic heating, and is much simpler than the electricity market as a way of becoming independent of oil.
The market, the internal market, is blind if we do not give it something to aim for, if we do not install guard rails. What we did for renewable energies, we must also do for cogeneration. It is in this respect that I regard the Commission proposal as somewhat feeble, and I am glad that tomorrow, there will, I think, be a majority in this House for reiterating the 18% objective and underlining the contribution cogeneration can make to our entering the hydrogen era. We cannot have President Prodi gathering together a high-level group of experts and then fail to incorporate into law the first regulatory framework that really enables us to create a market for fuel cells, with a growing European demand for them as its result. I am glad that Mr Rübig and other Members see this point so clearly.
Let me turn to the definitions. Definitions might be thought to be technical in nature, but, in fact, politics lurks behind the technology. Annex II is about determining which current in a cogeneration plant is actually cogenerated electricity. This definition is independent of climate zones. There can be only one definition, and it must apply throughout Europe. If such is not the case, we are opening the way to distortions of competition in the European internal market. The amendments that Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca intends to bring in tomorrow do not help in this respect and should be voted out.
Annex III defines the energy efficiency of cogeneration plants. This is where there is a clear difference between, for example, Greece and the Netherlands, because many Greeks still heat their homes inefficiently with coal, whilst the Dutch have highly efficient gas heating. Such differences of climate can be compensated for only after an indefinite period of time and with a fully-functioning internal market, so we should allow ourselves some time for this. In any case, Annex III has to build on Annex II. The only electricity that this directive must consider is that which has undoubtedly been derived from cogeneration. If it fails to do so, the result will be legal uncertainty and an open door for subsidies, some of which are inefficient, while others amount to something like fraud. If we fail to lay down unambiguous definitions, we will be helping those who are in fact less well-disposed to cogeneration in Europe. I believe that what we all want this directive to do is to get cogeneration taken more seriously in future, and to get people investing in this technology, especially in Eastern Europe."@en1
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