Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-17-Speech-3-371"
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"en.20081217.24.3-371"2
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"Mrs Ţicău, you ask about investments in energy infrastructures. The second strategic review of the energy sector, adopted by the Commission, highlights the urgent need for the European Union to increase its investment in energy infrastructures in order to facilitate our energy policy objectives, which include security of supply, sustainability and competitiveness. The Council of Energy Ministers, meeting last week, also stressed the importance of increasing our investment in infrastructures, not to mention the energy and climate change agreement, which was endorsed by the European Council last weekend and adopted by you yourselves here in this House today.
The Commission insists – and I believe we can also count on the support of the Council and Parliament – that the current economic recession should not be a reason to delay or reduce investment in energy infrastructures. Investment in energy and, in particular, in energy infrastructures, should promote job creation, drive innovation, encourage the development of new activities and the use of new technologies, and foster economic confidence. It should also provide benefits in the sense that our economy will, with such investment, progress faster towards becoming an economy of low CO
emission levels.
In the economic recovery plan approved by the Commission and endorsed by the Council, we propose that, between now and 2010, an additional EUR 4 billion from unused Community budget resources be mobilised for trans-European energy networks and related investments. That means EUR 4 billion out of the EUR 5 billion that in the communication, in our plan, we proposed should be used, will be allocated for these purposes.
Last week, the European Council approved the essential points of our proposal on this issue, although we have yet to see how the budgetary authority – both the Council and this Parliament – will interpret the general statements included in the conclusions of the European Council Presidency.
In addition, the European Investment Bank has committed significant increases of up to EUR 6 billion per year to finance investments relating to climate change, security, energy supply and energy infrastructures. It has also announced its commitment to speeding up the use of the current credit guarantee instrument to help finance trans-European network projects, in order to encourage greater private sector participation, which is essential. We cannot finance the volume of investment needed between now and 2020 or 2030, according to different estimates, just from public funds.
Lastly, there is one factor that I hope will be significant, which has also been endorsed by the European Council and was included in our proposals. This is the decision to launch the 2020 European Fund for Energy, Climate Change and Infrastructure, a venture involving the European Investment Bank, the national infrastructure funding agencies and other possible agents, with a view to financing capital and quasi-capital projects in the area of infrastructures in general and energy infrastructures in particular.
In the field addressed by your question, therefore, you will see that many important decisions have been announced in recent weeks or are now being implemented."@en1
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