Hopes for accelerated negotiations immediately after the draft bill is voted in the Parliament's energy and transport committee (ITRE) tomorrow (28 February) will probably be dashed, several MEPs told EurActiv.
An 82-page compromise proposal on the draft bill, tabled by Green MEP Claude Turmes (Luxembourg), has not pleased all legislators, although it received backing from all political group representatives.
This is despite a shared view that the directive should help bring benefits in terms of CO2 reductions and lower the EU's dependence on oil imports.
Markus Pieper MEP, the chief negotiator for the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the European Parliament, said the assembly's views will be clearer after a vote in plenary, scheduled for 28 March.
“It is important that all MEPs in Parliament have the opportunity to comment on the compromise package,” Pieper said. “It is a requirement of democracy to firstly vote collectively and then secondly to negotiate with other institutions."
Pieper, however, said he did not expect significant changes, since the hardest discussions between MEPs have already taken place.
Parliament divided
“The MEPs do not have united positions on the directive” and “negotiations inside and between political groups are extremely intensive,” said Slovenian MEP Romana Jordan (EPP).
These divisions were already apparent when MEPs tabled 1,800 amendments to the bill, but the compromise reached recently showed their political will to come to an agreement.
“Everyone must gain something and lose something,” Romana said. However, if the political group negotiators are “capable enough to make a balanced proposal,” the draft directive will be ready for negotiations with the member states as soon as the end of February.
Some national delegations in the European Parliament do not believe the current compromise text will be definitive. “The devil sleeps in the detail,” said Polish MEP Lena Kolarska-Bobińska (EPP), in charge with crafting the Energy Strategy 2020 report in 2010.
The position of the European Parliament will be clear only after the plenary vote, Bobińska said. The discussion, she said, should cover other committees, such as the Committee on Regional Development, because of the directive's impact on regional funds.
However, the regional development committee has had a chance to table an opinion and has not done it until now.
“This is not the Turmes directive,” Bobińska said, calling it too ambitious and unrealistic. “Turmes was trying to change the document from an energy efficiency one to a general energy policy and climate one, turning it into a Christmas tree.”
'Excuse' to delay negotiations
MEP Fiona Hall, chief negotiator for the Liberal Democrats on the efficiency directive, said there was a “broad mandate” in the Parliament on the current compromise and that waiting for the March plenary would “unnecessarily” delay decision-making.
The current deal was a “good and genuine compromise” between all political groups, which takes on board most concerns, whilst keeping the ambition necessary to reach the EU’s 20% energy savings target by 2020, Hall said.
The text, seen by EurActiv, says that if member states accept binding targets, they can have flexibility over the measures needed to implement the agreed energy savings. It did lower the annual renovation rate of public buildings to from 3% to 2.5%, but managed to reach common grounds on its thorniest point – the 1.5% annual energy companies’ savings obligations.
Conservative MEP Vicky Ford, chief negotiator on the energy efficiency bill for the European Conservatives and Reformist Group, hoped that those who are calling for a plenary vote did not use it as an excuse to delay the start of negotiations with the Council.
The Danish presidency has made it a top priority to broker a deal on the energy efficiency bill until the end of its mandate on 1 July – whilst Cyprus, the next presidency of the EU, has not announced its ambitions yet and is less likely to follow the issue as in depth as the Danes.
Ford said running negotiations alongside a vote in the plenary have happened before, and she expected most of the compromises to receive broad support in the industry committee vote.
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