Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-09-Speech-3-238"
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"en.20080409.25.3-238"2
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"Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, coal and steel were central at the start of the European Union, and still are, albeit as part of a completely different agenda involving globalisation, climate change and energy issues. It is ‘all hands on deck’, as it were; the input of this fund, however small, contributes to the technological revolution necessary to keep the steel sector competitive and to make coal a clean fuel, a clean raw material: ‘clean coal’.
The European Commission has also opted for this, on the eve of our pilot projects to achieve carbon capture and storage, for example as a technological innovation. I am emphatically in favour of this. I am not in favour of closing; I am in favour of keeping open. For example, NUON, a Dutch electricity company, is envisaging in Groningen a coal gasifier involving complete capture etc. This kind of project requires support and more resources than are currently on the table.
More important – as Commissioner Potočnik knows – is my plea for a better combination of funds, Structural Funds, input from the European Investment Bank, etc. More matching, bundling, is required to enable major research into infrastructure and investment. The existing rule ‘one fund, one project’ is a definite hindrance. We must also tinker with these rules, and fortunately the European Commission is already testing the boundaries in this regard.
On 5 and 6 March we spoke in Brdo, Slovenia, about more focus and bundling of European projects. This summer, the Commission will be presenting a new profile for the Esprit programme, to achieve more targeted investment. This is what we want to hear about, not the phasing-out of coal. That is indeed the wrong course to take."@en1
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