Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-22-Speech-1-104"
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"en.20030922.6.1-104"2
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".
Madam President, having listened very carefully to your speeches, I understand that, as we say in Spanish
[enthusiasm is entirely describable]. Ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Linkohr said a moment ago, it is very possible that if there had been any really serious problem with a break in supply we would not be having a discussion like the one we are having now. Because all the problems which this proposal is intended to prevent would have been confronted and we would have had ways to respond to them.
I hope to see the results of the vote tomorrow and, ladies and gentlemen, as I have always said, of course I will take the result into account and under no circumstances do I intend to use the back door to achieve anything in the event that the honourable Members reject the proposals outright. This is very clear and all I believe is that, tomorrow, you should consider your decisions very carefully before voting, because I believe there is room to improve the current situation.
The problem is that, as I see the issues developing, the proposal will probably be rejected tomorrow, at least one of them, and all I can say to the honourable Members is that I am not going to use the back door. Some of you have expressed concern that I might go against this House’s rejection, and make some complicated and tortuous deal with the Council. No, if I do not have the support of this House, I will promote other types of initiative and I simply hope that the time never comes for me to say, ‘I told you so’, because that would mean amongst other things that we do not have any really serious crisis in the energy sector. That is my intention, ladies and gentlemen.
Nevertheless, there are two or three things that I would like to clear up, because I have heard several questions which do not really correspond to the texts which I have proposed. Firstly, the proposal on oil stocks is not intended to play with prices or intervene in them. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about something very different, that the European Energy Agency has modified its recent decisions and has adjusted its previous criteria, according to which oil stocks could only be used when there was a break in the market, specifically of around 6 or 7%.
And in the face of this previous rigid position, there has been a development towards providing for the possibility of using stocks in view of the certainty of a break, without this actually having arisen. Because when there is a break in supply and there is a 7% shortage in the market, we have a major problem. And this development, which is one of the aims of the Commission’s initiative, ladies and gentlemen, has been taken up recently by the International Energy Agency. It is not therefore a question of playing with prices, and if there is any phrase which remotely gives that impression, that phrase of course should not be maintained, but it should be changed and we would make it extremely clear, because nobody intends to play with prices.
As for the second issue, it is not a question of giving the Commission more competencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is a question of having mechanisms which allow us to overcome the situation in the event of crisis. One of you asked me: if you had to explain to your voters what the justification for this proposal is, how would you do so? Well, I will explain it very simply: let us imagine that there is an oil crisis and the International Energy Agency says ‘let us use the mechanisms’. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there are two types of mechanism: mechanisms for managing the market and mechanisms for using stocks.
The States within the International Energy Agency can choose one system or another. And this is all very well while there is no totally integrated market as in the case of the European Union. Because the fact that a country of the European Union, one of the large ones, suddenly chooses an option which is radically different from that of its neighbour, which is perhaps not so big, is going, automatically to cause problems and tensions in the operation of the neighbouring country’s market, even if that neighbouring country is of the same size.
The whole of the European Union market is going to be subjected to very great pressure. Because in the field of energy, of oil, we are not talking about solely national decisions, I am afraid, but European Union decisions, because the market involves the whole of the European Union and, therefore, the proposal is not that the Commission should decide what should be done or not. The proposal is that, by means of a system of comitology, with the participation of all the States of the Union, there should be consensus and agreement on how to use those margins, those mechanisms, so as not to cause greater tensions within the European Union’s market. That is what I am advocating. And all of this should guarantee greater security if we think in terms of improving the number of days for citizens and for the European production system.
When it comes to the field of gas, what I am proposing is that there should be systems and plans essentially relating to management, because in the case of gas we are not just talking about reserves, but in particular of management, in order to guarantee that the consumers whose lives depend on gas do not have shortages and that they have a guaranteed minimum number of days of supply under all circumstances.
And that is what we are talking about. Ladies and gentlemen, what we are talking about is improving security of supply and the functioning of the internal energy market and, therefore, of strengthening the European Union from the point of view not just of guarantees to consumers but also of its economic capacities."@en1
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