Ministers give nod to EU energy security agenda[fr][de] 

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.

French MEP Anne Laperrouze (ALDE), the Parliament's rapporteur on the Second Strategic Energy Review, expressed satisfaction that the Council's conclusions on the package acknowledged the short, medium and long-term objectives of her report. "I hope that the ministers for energy will be able to convince their fellow finance ministers who grumble at financing Europe's recovery plan, especially its energy component which responds both to the broader objective of energy solidarity and to the need to diversify our sources of supply," she said.

Czech Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Říman, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said that the Strategic Energy Review clearly stated how the member states should secure their long-term energy supplies. "Experiences with the gas crisis show that allocating a part of the resources intended for the EU economic recovery to the energetic sector was a very far-sighted decision," he said, adding that the meeting's objective was "not to select concrete projects but rather to initiate an expert debate on the technical criteria of projects so that they correspond with the targets of the European Economic Recovery Plan".

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) welcomed the Council's support for offshore wind in a commitment to publish a blueprint for a North Sea grid. "In its conclusions, the Council confirms the EU's need to turn to an indigenous energy supply and to 'promote renewables and tackle barriers to energy from renewable sources'. These actions are essential for increasing our use of renewables and so boosting the EU's energy security, and putting money to work at home rather than spending it on importing fuel from unstable regions abroad," said EWEA Chief Executive Christian Kjaer.

Reactions from environmental lobbyists were much less positive. Greenpeace criticised the energy ministers' conclusions for lack of focus. "The so-called strategic energy review supports a contradictory muddle of energy technologies," said Frauke Thies, Greenpeace EU's energy policy campaigner, pointing out that the ministers' support for energy efficiency and renewable energies was in marked contrast with their promotion of continued support for coal-dependent technologies and nuclear power, "perpetuating a centralised and unsustainable energy model".