EU energy ministers will have a host of prickly issues to debate when they meet in Brussels next Thursday (15 February 2007) to examine Commission proposals on energy and climate change.
Draft conclusions drawn up in advance of a Brussels summit on 8-9 March leave issues such as energy efficiency, renewable energies and market liberalisation for debate at the ministers' meeting.
"The delegations' main concerns are related to the nature of the targets envisaged for renewables and biofuels," the document states, indicating that the German Presidency supported a 12.5% target for biofuels in the EU's total fuel consumption, up from the 10% initially proposed by the Commission.
But most controversial are the next steps in the liberalisation of the electricity and gas sectors, with France, Germany and the UK clashing over Commission suggestions to break up the network arms of large utilities from their energy-generation activities (so-called ownership unbundling).
"A few delegations…believe that there is merit in spelling out other options…besides that of ownership unbundling and independent system operator proposed by the Commission," the document states.
"There is an awful stress," explained Green MEP Claude Turmes at a press briefing on 8 February, adding that France and Germany were joining efforts to persuade others to delay further liberalisation until existing directives are fully applied.
"The German Presidency has tried over the past week to use the agenda-setting power of the government holding the Presidency to try to delay all decisions concerning the internal market to a June energy minister's council," Turmes said.
"Other governments should not allow the German government to use the Presidency to defend in a very crude way the market dominance interests of the big German power companies E.on and RWE."
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