Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-11-Speech-2-084-000"
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"en.20120911.5.2-084-000"2
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"Madam President, perhaps I could add a couple of words about the directive itself and its architecture. What we have done here is that in March 2007, with the assistance of Chancellor Merkel, a political objective was established: Europe would aim for a 20% improvement in energy efficiency, in renewable energy and in climate change. Laws were then passed on renewable energy and the climate, making them binding. What we are doing here now is actually putting Chancellor Merkel’s promise into concrete legislation and creating a new architecture for energy efficiency in Europe, with a maximum primary energy consumption in Europe in 2020 of 1 474 million tonnes oil equivalent. The Member States must send national efficiency targets to Brussels as early as April 2013. I am very grateful to you, Commissioner, for having made it clear that if the Member States do not submit a national efficiency target, the debate on binding targets will be reopened.
I would also like to thank you for being prepared to discuss the issue of UK VAT once more, so that we do not get a bad press in the United Kingdom. What I am still waiting to hear about is the implementation, and the issue of how you are organising yourselves in the Commission. Experience shows that apart from Denmark, Belgium and Ireland, and eventually, to some extent, Poland, Italy and then the new French Government, the others have done nothing but negotiate downwards. If you now go and discuss the whole guidance only with the Member States, then there is a risk that the whole thing will be watered down. I believe that the Ecodesign Forum is the appropriate place, where stakeholders and Member States sit down together at particular times to simply discuss facts only and to ask ourselves what is going on here. It is clear that the decisions between the Commission and the Member States are subsequently agreed decisions. However, we should create such a forum.
I would also like to thank you for having mentioned the Structural Funds. I would then like to move on to the Emissions Trading System (ETS). In the case of the Structural Funds, we are talking about EUR 20 billion by 2020 – if it goes through. If we get the ETS back on track, then we are talking about revenues for the Member States in the order of EUR 120 billion to EUR 200 billion. In other words, the question of how we reinvest in Europe is also related to us getting this ETS market back up and running. However, that is also important for the major energy concerns and the captains of industry. How are they supposed to develop a vision? How are they supposed to elaborate an investment strategy when ETS prices are falling so much?
I have one very final word to add. Last week, something happened that I find mind-blowing. Last week, I was informed that Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology had attempted to more or less water down or moderate two fundamental definitions in the German translation. I must say that as a Member of Parliament who is negotiating an English text, I consider it institutionally impossible if I can no longer be sure that once the negotiations are complete, governments will not go in and exert extreme pressure on the translators. I would like this to become known externally so that it does not happen again. It cannot be the case, and we cannot allow it to happen, that governments attempt to rein in a fully negotiated text; it makes them look like bad losers.
Once again, I would like to express my thanks for the excellent cooperation by you all, and I would particularly like to mention the chair of our Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. We have enjoyed positive cooperation with the secretariat, with my staff. We have once again written a little bit of energy history."@en1
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