Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-17-Speech-2-173"
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"en.20060117.19.2-173"2
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, I do believe that the Commission and the Presidency have done the right thing. In the absence of sufficient information, we refrained from apportioning blame in any way and did not want under any circumstances whatever to express agreement with any one party to this dispute or even to betray the least hint of it. What is clear is that the situation could very well become critical, for one new Member State had problems with the energy supply to its industry from day one, but we and the Commission are deliberately not talking in terms of a critical situation rather than of a crisis.
We must not lose sight of the fact that dependence on fossil energy sources and on imports thereof cannot do other than markedly increase; the Commission estimates that the proportion of our energy that we derive from these sources will, by 2030, increase from just under 50% – which is what it is at present – to something like two-thirds. It will be possible to influence this to some degree by the use of renewable energy sources and by improving energy efficiency, but I do not myself take the view that we can bring about any fundamental about-turn in this trend. The presidency looks forward with great interest to the Green Paper, or rather to the appearance of the first parts of it in time for the Spring Summit. When, if not now, are we to discuss the development of a common European energy policy? What prompts us to go further down this road is the gas issue, Russia, Ukraine, and the problem of supply, as well as oil prices, climate change and many other considerations too.
Both I personally, and the presidency as a whole, endorse the Commission’s proposal for the creation of a two-month reserve similar to that which already exists at another level for oil. Your House will have an opportunity to discuss the details of this later on. As I said in my statement on Moldova, we have sought in many respects to give priority to that country in our neighbourhood policy.
Despite Mr Swoboda’s assertion that having Russia as a member of the WTO would open up certain possibilities in this respect, even then, it would be possible to do but little within the space of 36 hours. What is interesting is that Russia has not ratified the Energy Charter, and so there can be no recourse to the dispute resolution procedure for which it provides. It is, then, energy efficiency that must quite clearly be given priority, along with renewable energies and the fostering of the awareness that we must, in various ways, and to an even greater extent than before, address the issue of gas imports.
It remains for me to observe that, over the coming years and decades, Russia and Russian natural gas will become the backbone of the European Union’s gas supply. Speaking as an Austrian, I would like to point out that it was an Austrian company, OMV, that was, in 1968, the first to conclude a supply contract with Gasprom, which has been absolutely reliable for nearly forty years. We need to win trust, and perhaps, to some extent, to rebuild it.
I have already, in my speech, discussed the alternative route in the shape of the ‘Nabucco’ pipeline through Turkey. Absolutely necessary though it is to diversify supply, this cannot be accomplished overnight; we must learn our lessons from the critical situation that lasted for 36 hours. With this in mind, I am grateful to your House for this very important debate and will close by highlighting the importance that we attach to this chapter as an item on the agenda for the Spring Summit in March."@en1
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