Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-14-Speech-2-058"
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"en.20060214.6.2-058"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Piebalgs, we – and you, Commissioner – can take it as read that this House will, today, and by a large majority, call upon the Commission to put forward a legislative proposal for heating and cooling using renewable energies. As our means to this end, we opted deliberately for a legislative own-initiative report, which is very seldom used and requires a qualified majority, and we did so in order that our initiative might carry a good deal more weight. The fact that our report was adopted in Committee unanimously but for a few abstentions shows that a wide range of Members from all the political families will call on the Commission to at last do something about this, and I use the words ‘at last’ in view of the fact that the Commission ought to have stirred itself into action as long ago as May 2004, when its communication on the share of renewable energy in the EU was presented. That communication made it quite clear that the predicted failure to achieve the goal of doubling the share of renewable energy in overall energy consumption by 2010 was, in essence, attributable to poor market penetration by renewable heating and cooling technologies.
At present, some 10% of heat is derived from renewable sources of energy such as solar thermal and geothermal energy and biomass – far less than half than what is potentially feasible in the medium or long term. Experts work on the assumption that it will, by 2020, be possible to derive at least 25% of the heat and cooling that we need from renewable energy resources, but those sources will be usable only if framework conditions change. The fact that the subsidies accorded by at least some Member States are dependent on their own budgets has, however, meant that development has not been really continuous but has been on a stop-start basis. What is needed is for broad market penetration to be brought about by a European framework directive.
It is not reasonable to prescribe a European support system, and nor have we done so. What shape support is to take is for the Member States to decide; what matters is that they should actually give some and that all barriers that hinder progress should be removed. That means that administrative obstacles must be done away with, that transparent rules on competence must apply and that procedures relating to applications for authorisation must be unambiguous and streamlined.
With this report, we urge the Commission to present a proposal for a directive obliging the Member States to legislate in favour of heating and cooling from renewable energy sources and also to draw up action plans for future development. The intention is that action should be taken on the basis of effective national goals and result in at least a twofold increase across the EU by 2020.
Many people in the European Union, Commissioner, are waiting for the Commission to take action. They worry about the environment and our climate; among them are many small and medium-sized businesses with great potential for employment, who particularly want to make their contribution to the production of heat from the sun, the earth, and from biomass.
We were delighted to note that the biomass action plan included the announcement of the eventual production of a directive. I have since seen a preliminary draft of the Energy Green Paper, which has been floating around the corridors of Brussels, and was shocked to see that nowhere in it is there any reference to the need for new things to be done about heating. In this draft Green Paper, incredibly, there is scant reference to renewable energy sources at all.
I hope that you, Commissioner Piebalgs, will be able to allay my concerns following the reading of this draft Green Paper, and also that you will again display the commitment to efficiency and renewable energies for which we know you. I hope that you announce that the Commission will, this year, produce a proposal for a directive on heating and cooling from renewable sources of energy."@en1
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