Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-20-Speech-2-577-000"
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"en.20121120.31.2-577-000"2
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Mr President, honourable Members, we would like to thank you for the many suggestions, criticisms and questions you have put forward and on this basis we will certainly continue to focus intensively over the coming weeks on the work being carried out between several Commissioners and our departments and services. Thoroughness will take precedence over speed here.
We need a willingness to compromise between energy strategy and environmental protection. We need a willingness to compromise between countries that use 90 % coal – Poland today – and do not wish to import gas from Russia, because this is the lesson they have learned from their past. That is why Poland is looking towards nuclear energy and shale gas. We need a willingness to compromise from the British, so that they are willing, like Tony Blair back then, to Europeanise energy and climate protection policy further rather than renationalise it. After all, one thing is clear: when it comes to climate protection, each Member State alone has no global relevance!
The EU 27 – we are still responsible for 11 % of global CO
emissions. If we do not stick together, if we are not willing to compromise, if we accuse each other of lobbying and dependence on lobbyists, if we do not strive for new pragmatic targets for CO
emission cuts, efficiency and renewable energies for 2030, this success story of European energy and climate protection policy will come to an end more quickly than many people think, and with it our significance in the eyes of Washington and Beijing and others, as well as our function as a role model.
For this reason, leaving aside the issue of shale gas, I am calling for a willingness to compromise from you all, if the success story of European energy and climate protection policy is to continue in the next decade with you or your successors. At this time, with an anti-European mood in a growing number of Member States, incredible diversity in the energy mix and growing mistrust, as it was possible to observe here in the Chamber today, I see difficulties ahead when the time comes to update, with our support, binding targets on CO
emission cuts, renewable energies and efficiency – hopefully next year in this Parliament – if there is to be a certain chance of success.
It has been highlighted today how competences are divided up. What we do not have is a mandate in the area of energy policy or a general mandate to make yes or no decisions on shale gas. A ban or general permission without further obligations cannot fall within the competence of European policy. What we have, what my colleague Mr Potočnik has above all, are applicable rules, an applicable European regulatory framework for environmental protection, for soil and groundwater protection and for the protection of health. This must be observed. The Member States are under an obligation to observe it. If there are abuses, these are investigated. The question – which we are analysing – is whether we need to expand our legislation on conservation and on the protection of the environment, climate and health.
Secondly: Europe’s energy mix is already being affected by the development of shale gas in the United States. Today we have large quantities of LNG in Europe from various production countries across the world, because this gas is no longer exported to the United States. This means the Americans are ensuring that they meet their own gas needs through shale gas, and we have access to LNG by means of existing and planned LNG terminals. The rush by Member States to build new LNG terminals and to obtain funding, whether via the European Investment Bank or via the budget, is just as great in the three Baltic states as it is in the Mediterranean region, on the Adriatic, in Croatia, Slovenia and Italy.
There is a second indirect advantage for us resulting from shale gas in the United States. Thanks to the shale gas revolution the Russians were prepared to enter into negotiations and also arbitration proceedings with us in relation to long-term agreements and maximum prices for gas. Some gas contracts with the Russians have already been amended and the gas price lowered a little, because shale gas has brought about a change on the global market, a reduction in the price of gas, and will continue to do so. The sequence is therefore clear: we will check the applicable rules and will be willing to update and expand these if necessary.
There was one question that I found fascinating: do we need gas at all? I would like to say to you explicitly that the energy mix and technology is a matter for the Member States – and I do not believe that an amendment to Article 194 will be accepted by the Member States in our generation, as the circumstances in the Member States are so different that the decision for or against nuclear power, the decision on how long to use nuclear power for and how much of it to use, and the decision for or against coal, gas or renewable energies will not be handed over to European level by the 28 Member States. I do not expect this to happen in the foreseeable future. That being the case, it is clear that important decisions lie with the Member States.
I am in favour of the strong development of renewable energies. At present, however, 100 % renewable energies for transport, heating, electricity and industry is a long-term vision and one that, if you try to achieve it too quickly, becomes a sheer illusion. There was in fact a broad understanding here in Parliament that gas is the most flexible and environmentally friendly supplementary energy source to ensure security of supply alongside increasing renewable energies.
Mr Bütikofer, looking at the issue objectively – a short while ago you were still sporting your green battle dress from your party conference and were getting a little hot under the collar (I have to say I admired your passion) – the Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, someone we both admire, is asking for gas-fired power stations to be built via capacity mechanisms to ensure that renewable energies do not present an obstacle to security of supply. This means that you have to ask the question. I suggest that over the next 30 years we will have an urgent need for gas – regardless of whether this is conventional or unconventional – if the development of renewable energies such as solar and wind power, which cannot meet baseload energy needs and are not constantly available, is to remain compatible with security of supply and affordability in Europe. We will not be able to manage without gas over the coming decades and, therefore, ultimately without CCS either, if we want to take action in the area of CO
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One last, general point that is on my mind: where do competences, both yours and ours, lie in the area of energy and climate protection at European level? In the three 20-20-20 criteria! These were broadly agreed upon and set in 2007 by means of the approval of all Member States in the European Council and, in parallel, by means of a large majority here in the European Parliament. I have now started the discussion on new targets for 2030, as 2020 is tomorrow – and for investors, it was yesterday.
What I ask is this: amidst all the arguments, if we want to achieve agreement between all Member States, from Belgium and Germany to Poland and the UK, on matters concerning energy and climate protection policy and therefore want to retain competence and authority in relation to energy policy issues, also for the next European Parliament and the one after that, we need to be willing to compromise. If everyone tries to push through their own ideal or stubborn position, we will not get anywhere!"@en1
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