European Union News - Energy

The Committee of the Regions (CoR) has backed the Energy Roadmap 2050, European Commission's plans to reduce energy consumption and commit to shifting towards more sustainable energy resources. However, it urged that far more needs to be done to support local and regional authorities if these objectives are to be achieved.

Energy Committee (ITRE Committee) in the European Parliament approved that offshore oil and gas firms would have to submit major hazard reports and emergency response plans before getting a licence to drill. This draft law is designed to prevent accidents such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The nuclear stress tests made to the nuclear power plants in Europe show that the standards of safety of nuclear power plants in Europe are generally high but further improvements in the safety features of almost all European nuclear power plants are recommended.

The Council adopted the energy efficiency directive with the Finnish delegation abstaining and the Spanish and Portuguese delegations voting against. According to the Council, the directive establishes a common framework of measures for the promotion of energy efficiency within the Union in order to achieve its 2020 20% headline target on energy efficiency. Each member state will also be obliged to set an indicative national energy efficiency target.

Environment Committee in the European Parliament underlined that oil firms must be held liable for the costs of any potential environmental damage - and have the means to pay - or else be denied licences to drill in EU waters. The Committee voted on 19 of September on the new legislation that will set minimum European standards for offshore oil and gas safety, regulating licensing, emergency plans and decommissioning of platforms.

MEPs decided to amend the draft legislation designed to accelerate work on developing and co-ordinating energy infrastructure projects. The ITRE Committee in the European Parliament amended governance rules for the regional expert groups to increase their transparency, and defined more clearly which commercially non-viable projects should be entitled to EU funding from the Connecting Europe Facility.

The European Commission has adopted a Communication describing a set of initiatives aimed at achieving a more competitive European maritime and marine sectors and at ensuring their sustainable growth. Commission's document analyses the potential for growth ans competitiveness which marine and maritime sectors as a whole can make to the European economy through innovative activities such as marine energy or biotechnology.