Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2016-05-25-Speech-1-240-000"
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"en.20160525.21.1-240-000"2
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"Mr President, firstly let me thank the Commissioner for his good words and also Theresa Griffin for her work on this file and her willingness to cooperate and seek to find good compromises. I must say that it was a privilege to work with her.
I think the report we will vote on tomorrow will send the right message. It puts forward some good ideas about how we can lower energy prices for all. We should not underestimate the importance of this issue in a wider economic context. Reducing energy costs, and therefore household costs, is a massive opportunity to ease the burden on already stretched household budgets across Europe. This can in turn boost consumer spending power, give a boost to businesses and help to bring economic growth across the EU.
For me, the best way to deliver this new deal for energy consumers is by putting in place a well—functioning market and a well—functioning energy system. Competitive markets increase transparency and comparability of prices, and better-informed and empowered consumers will help energy become far more affordable for all. I think one important aspect of this is increasing the share of the retail price on which retailers can compete. In Europe retailers can only compete with each other on about a third of the price. The rest is made up of taxes and add-ons. Increasing this share by reducing the amount of government add—ons would increase competition, drive down prices for consumers and, at the same time, allow retail prices to better reflect wholesale prices, enabling proper market signals to occur.
The other part of this debate we are here to address is energy poverty. I think the differing definitions of energy poverty in different Member States, based on different climatic conditions, is something we need to strongly consider before thinking about an EU-level action, but that should not distract from the importance of this issue. In Ireland, we define energy poverty as an inability to heat or power a home to an adequate degree. A household in Ireland that spends more than 10% of its income on energy is considered to be in energy poverty. As a country that has the third highest energy prices in Europe, this is of course a big issue for us, and I am pleased to say that we put in place a strategy to combat the problem early this year. I look forward to further debate and progress on this very important issue."@en1
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