EU states split over energy policy budget

Date: 05/11/1998

By Chris Johnstone

MEMBER states will try to bury their differences next week and agree a figure for financing the EU's energy policies in future.

Union governments are split three ways ahead of a meeting of energy ministers next Friday (13 November) over a proposal from the Austrian presidency to fix the budget for the EU's four-year energy framework programme at 180 million ecu.

Germany, the UK and the Netherlands - the countries which most often oppose extra Union spending - have rejected the proposed figure as too high, while a second group of member states favours Vienna's compromise and a third argues that the total falls too short of the European Commission's original demand for 213 million ecu.

The Commission's energy framework programme covers ongoing studies into the sector, energy cooperation, efficiency, renewables, the cleaner use of coal and nuclear cooperation programmes.

Although the European Parliament has approved most of the framework, the correct legal basis for the energy efficiency programme Save and the renewables programme Altener is still being sought. Ministers are, however, expected to resolve this issue at next week's meeting.

They will also explain their approach at national level to boosting the contribution made by renewable energy to meeting the EU's power needs. The Union has outlined an ambitious programme to double the contribution of renewables to 12% of EU energy production by 2010.

A Commission report on how renewables can be encouraged without governments resorting to subsidies which could distort the liberalised EU electricity market, which kicks off in February 1999, is due by the end of the year.

At next week's meeting, energy ministers will also discuss a proposal to amend Commission rules on minimum levels of oil stocks by, for example, allowing reserves to be held in other countries.