Energy Council (Hansard, 8 June 2000)

§ Mrs. Liddell

The Council considered several matters of interest to the United Kingdom.

The centre-piece of the Council was a structured debate on energy liberalisation where the Commission presented a paper outlining progress on building a single energy market with proposals for accelerating liberalisation. Ministers were asked to comment on measures needed to monitor progress, further harmonisation requirements, social implications and public service obligations. The UK welcomed the Lisbon agreement on accelerating liberalisation, called for 100 per cent. liberalisation by a specific date and supported further structural measures including unbundling and regulated third party access. The UK circulated a report on the UK's experience of the social effects of energy liberalisation aimed at providing the Council with a balanced analysis of social effects of energy liberalisation. Also the UK/Netherlands circulated preliminary results of a joint study providing both qualitative and quantitative data on the development of competition in gas and electricity markets across Europe and urged the Commission to take this work forward. The Commission and most member states welcomed this work. Copies of both documents have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The Council adopted conclusions welcoming progress on implementation of the electricity directive and the agreement of the European electricity regulatory forum on a cross border transmission pricing mechanism, effective from 1 October, and acknowledged that further work was needed on congestion management. On gas the conclusions noted the work of the European gas regulatory forum.

In addition, the Commission presented a draft proposal on access for renewables to the internal electricity market and an energy efficiency action plan. The UK welcomed both dossiers identified as priorities in the UK Presidency. The first is a particularly important single market measure and both are key elements of the energy/environment integration strategy developed as part of the EU's response towards our Kyoto targets. The Council agreed conclusions on the energy efficiency action plan which recognised the need for Community policies and measures to complement, coordinate and add value to national actions, and invited the Commission, working in cooperation with member states, to come forward with specific proposals quickly.

The Council agreed conclusions on gas security of supply which invited the Commission to continue to monitor the supply position in Europe and to establish a group on an informal basis to discuss mutual areas of interest to improve coordination between member states.

Also, the Council adopted a decision enabling the European Community to sign an agreement with the United States on the coordination of energy-efficient labelling programmes for office equipment—energy star—and reached political agreement on a draft regulation for implementation of the energy star scheme.

Finally, the Council noted reports on Euro-Med Cooperation including conclusions and the Energy Charter Treaty.