The Energy Council broadly endorsed the Commission's proposed Second Strategic Energy Review, reaffirming their support for six infrastructure projects to improve gas and electricity interconnections and promote large-scale offshore wind:
- A yet-to-be-defined Southern gas corridor;
- diversying LNG supplies;
- electricity interconnection with the Baltic region;
- the Mediterranean Energy Ring;
- North-South gas and electricity interconnections within Central and South-East Europe, and;
- the North Sea and North West Offshore Grid.
Ministers also reiterated the need to create an external energy policy, with emphasis on developing cooperation with Russia, countries along the Southern Corridor and the Mediterranean region.
Renewable energies, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear power were also highlighted as key to providing a more secure energy future.
With an eye on the ongoing credit crunch, the ministers urged the Commission to prepare a Sustainable Energy Financing Initiative in cooperation with the European Investment Bank (EIB) to "mobilise large-scale funding from capital markets for investments" in energy efficiency measures and clean energies.
EU money reallocated, but divisions remain
Ministers held a discussion over lunch about the allocation of €3.75 billion of unspent EU money to electricity and gas interconnections, offshore wind and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects (EurActiv 29/01/09).
The Commission modified its proposals on the eve of the ministerial meeting in response to criticism from several member states regarding the sums they were offered under the plan. The revised proposal shifs money away from coal-based energy production by downgrading the support foreseen for CCS projects from €250 to €200 million. The Nabucco pipeline project also saw its funding lowered from €250 to €200 million.
Germany, the Netherlands and the UK appeared to lose out most in the Commission's modified plan, government sources told EurActiv. France, Italy and Belgium, on the other hand, emerged as winners.
Mauri Pekkarinen, Finnish minister of economic affairs, said there was "reasonable agreement" over the projects, but many countries questioned the decision to leave out energy-efficiency funding. The absence of money for bioenergy was also noted by a minority, including France, Finland and Portugal.
Many ministers, including France's Jean-Louis Borloo, were concerned about the choice of projects, questioning whether they would really contribute to economic recovery in the short term. The Commission claims that a substantial number of projects will take off by 2010, but Borloo and others retorted that this was not so in the majority of cases.
The economic recovery plan will be on the table again at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday (23 February). The list of projects is expected to create more disagreements between member states, and the zero-sum allocation process suggests that the list could be modified again.
