皇冠体育app

皇冠体育app United Kingdom was represented by Shan Morgan, Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU, at the EU Energy Council in Brussels on 3 December 2012.

皇冠体育app Presidency reported on recent progress in the negotiations of the proposal for a Regulation on the safety of offshore oil and gas. 皇冠体育app Council and the European Parliament both agreed that they would prefer a strong and appropriate Directive rather than a directly applicable Regulation. 皇冠体育app Commission noted that it was the content of the proposal rather than the legal form that was important and that it would be prepared to move away from a Regulation if a Directive provided for the highest safety standards. 皇冠体育app Irish Presidency will aim for rapid agreement of the dossier in 2013.

皇冠体育app Council agreed Conclusions on the Commission鈥檚 recent Communication on a Strategy for Renewable Energy. 皇冠体育app Commission noted that there was a need for a post-2020 target framework and to make it acceptable to all Member States.

皇冠体育app Commission then presented its Communication 鈥楳aking the internal energy market work鈥�, which had been produced in response to the European Council鈥檚 wish to see completion of the internal energy market by 2014. 皇冠体育app Commission noted that lack of investment was an issue for all Member States and that the Commission needed to address the issue of market design. 皇冠体育appre were problems in electricity security of supply as a result of the increased use of renewables; the EU needed to improve interconnections to make best use of the network and needed flexible back-up capacity, which should be dealt with at the EU level. 皇冠体育app Commission plans to put forward a proposal in 2013 for binding guidelines for the application and implementation of aid to the energy sector; this will cover feed-in tariffs and capacity mechanisms.

In the debate that followed, a number of Member States shared the Commission鈥檚 concerns about capacity markets. 皇冠体育app UK and two other Member States noted the importance of addressing serious electricity security of supply concerns resulting from the move to less predictable generation sources.听 皇冠体育app UK emphasised that it听 would work closely with the Commission to ensure that the internal market would not be compromised by any new capacity mechanisms.

On renewables, Member States were divided in their support for post-2020 binding targets. 皇冠体育app UK noted the need for a post-2020 framework but said that specific targets for renewables would not be welcome as they did not give Member States sufficient flexibility to deliver emissions reductions as cost-effectively as possible. 皇冠体育app Commission said that there was a need for discussion of 2030 targets suggesting that the May 2013 European Council would be a good opportunity.

Some Member States raised concerns about the Commission鈥檚 intention to issue a proposal on nuclear liabilities given they regarded听 nuclear safety as being a more important issue. 皇冠体育app Commission said that there was a need for a degree of obligatory insurance for nuclear liabilities. Proposals for a revision of the Nuclear Safety Directive would come out in early 2013.

On other issues, the Presidency noted the successful agreement with the European Parliament ITRE committee of the Regulation on guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure.听 皇冠体育app Commission and Presidency also reported on a number of international energy related items and meetings, including the upcoming EU-US Energy Council, the Energy Community, the Energy Charter, EU-Russia and the Southern Corridor.

Finally, Ireland outlined priorities for its Presidency, principally taking forward work on the internal energy market and the post-2020 framework.

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