Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-15-Speech-4-031"
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"en.20070215.4.4-031"2
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"I would like to begin by congratulating and thanking Mr dos Santos and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for this report.
This message must reach the citizens loud and clear so that public opinion may be in a position, on the one hand, to appreciate the importance of the efforts that we have asked them to make so far, and, on the other, to better understand and accept the efforts that have still to be made in order to ensure that the improvements that we are now beginning to see become structural improvements and allow us to look to the future with more confidence.
Nevertheless, I would say once again that this better behaviour of the economy does not make the report and the conclusions and recommendations of the report by Mr dos Santos, in particular, any less relevant in terms of the functioning of the energy market and the impact of energy consumption on climate change.
We must not ignore a series of factors. For example, that Europe’s energy supply is dependent on geopolitical factors, which are not entirely in our hands. For example, that the low level of interconnection of our gas and electricity energy networks makes us more vulnerable to those geopolitical factors and to tensions in supply, such as those we have seen this winter and the winter before.
For example, that that low level of interconnection, together with other factors of a national nature, make it impossible for a genuine internal energy market to emerge. This harms consumers, who pay more for energy, receive lower quality energy and have less security in terms of receiving that energy at acceptable prices and quality.
Or, for example, that the amount of CO2 that we continue to emit into the atmosphere is exacerbating the greenhouse effect and the consequences of that effect in terms of climate change.
In my view, the response to the problems and challenges referred to in the report, some elements of which I have just listed, can largely be found in the proposals included in the energy package approved by the Commission in January and which is going to be one of the principal issues to be discussed at the European Council of 8 and 9 March.
Our proposals cover both economic and environmental aspects, security aspects stemming from our energy dependency and proposals to improve the efficiency of energy use. In this regard, I believe that they are essentially in line with the considerations and recommendations contained in the report by Mr dos Santos.
All we need to do is move on from debate to action. The citizens are aware of the challenges we have to face. At the forthcoming European Council, the Heads of State or Government must now provide the necessary political impetus to implement a genuine European energy strategy such as the one put forward by the Commission in its proposal, and like the one that this Parliament has been calling for repeatedly, in today's report and in other reports and resolutions.
It is a very complete report in terms of its content and it is particularly timely when the European Council of 8 March is about to discuss a broad energy package approved by the Commission in January.
That package includes a proposal for a global European strategy capable of taking on the challenge of guaranteeing the energy supply while at the same time combating climate change.
The fact that, over recent weeks and months, the oil price has fallen back from maximum levels of close to 80 dollars per barrel, which it reached last summer during the Lebanon crisis, does not mean that the main conclusions and recommendations contained in the report are no longer as relevant.
Those conclusions and recommendations place the emphasis on the structural factors that have led to the recent price levels, or current price levels. These factors are undoubtedly going to remain in place.
However, in view of the growth and inflation figures for 2006, which have been released over recent days, it is worth stressing how well the European economy has reacted in general to the volatility and rises in oil prices this year.
I agree with the concerns expressed in the report with regard to the consequences of the increase in prices, but it is also the case that, over recent months, those consequences have been less serious than we had feared and than those that we have seen in previous cases of sharp increases in oil prices.
This is something that should be stressed. It is linked to the debate we held yesterday in this House on the Bullmann and Andersson reports. It is significant that, at a time when the European Council is going to discuss both this energy strategy and climate change package and the Lisbon Strategy, our European economies have experienced a period of sharp oil price increases and that, at the same time, economic growth has sped up without any particularly worrying tensions in prices.
As I said yesterday in this House, this is not the result of chance, it is the result of efforts made over recent years to make the functioning of Europe’s markets in goods, services, capital and labour more efficient, and it is the result, beyond the cyclical element of the current economic situation, of the positive results that we are beginning to see thanks to the structural reforms already carried out, and thanks to the budgetary consolidation efforts of recent years."@en1
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