Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-02-Speech-1-088"
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"en.20030602.7.1-088"2
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". – Mr President, after three years of intense debate, Parliament will this week vote on the second directives on the electricity and gas markets. What did Parliament and the rapporteurs try to achieve? Instead of focusing only on the quantitative aspects of market opening, Parliament and the rapporteurs have made efforts to ensure that equal importance is given to the qualitative aspects. I am proud to be able to say today that we have managed to re-regulate and to make this market 'greener' in many areas.
Those who are sceptical about the process of liberalisation will have to admit that this second directive on electricity implies a much better regulatory environment than was the case with the first directive from 1996.
What have we achieved? The objectives of the market today give equal status to competition, security of supply and the environment. Secondly, we have stronger regulators and we have taken the first step on the way to unbundling the separate interests of grid generation and retail. We were able to strengthen the public service obligations and impose stronger obligations on grid companies to ensure the necessary investment. There are strong requirements on the suppliers of electricity to inform customers in the contracts. I am particularly happy that we have obliged the suppliers to give full information on the mix of electricity and on the environmental consequences of their production.
This will allow consumers in Europe to make an informed choice. It will also allow society to continue the debate on energy services. We also have a universal service, but not only that, we now also have the obligation to establish a supplier of last resort.
All these measures will not be enough, however, to ensure that small customers will receive the benefits of the liberalised market. A single domestic customer will have to compete with big industrial consumers to get a fair price. It is only because we will favour and encourage small customers to bundle together in order to form sales communities that small consumers will now be able to get a good price.
We were also able to strengthen the status of decentralised energy producers. We managed to establish the concept of long-term avoided costs. This will mean that the practice in certain countries, where you pay as much to transport energy for 200 metres from a co-generation unit to a neighbour as you pay to transport energy for over 500 kilometres will change and this will give small generators a real chance. It is the small generators, the innovation which we have through the miniaturisation of engines, the intelligent grids we have through the development of software, together with new independent power producers, that will be the panacea of the market.
But these innovations will only come onto the market if, as politicians, we have the courage to impose a real level playing field. Innovation will not come from dinosaurs. Therefore we have to be careful over the next few years to ensure that the large integrated companies are not allowed to play too many games. We need ownership unbundling. We need ring-fencing of the decommissioning funds. It is absolutely nonsensical to speak of a level playing field if we allow the EDF to use EUR 30 billion, Eon EUR 12 billion and RWE EUR 10 billion from the decommissioning funds in the market. We also need a much more stringent merger policy against these oligopolies which are coming onto the market.
Finally – and probably the most important point – we need one competition policy for one market. We cannot allow double standards in a single European market and we therefore need the DG Competition competences under the EU Treaty rules on competition. The game which the Commission, and especially Mr Lamoureux, as head of DG TREN played with the Council and Parliament over the last weeks is not right. This was an attempt to remove the decommissioning funds from Mr Monti's competences on competition policy. Commissioner, you did a good job on ensuring the establishment of an internal market. The games must stop. We as a Parliament will not accept double standards on competition policy.
Finally, I want to thank all the rapporteurs for their good cooperation. Often it was trust in the rapporteurs that secured this important piece of legislation."@en1
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