Activites

• 2003/07/15 Final act published in Official Journal
  • Decision 2003/1229
  • OJ L 176 15.07.2003, p. 0011-0029
• 2003/06/26 Final act signed
• 2003/06/26 End of procedure in Parliament
• #2518
• 2003/06/16 Council Meeting
• 2003/06/04 Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading
  • T5-0245/2003 summary

    The European Parliament adopted a resolution based on the draft report by Nicholas CLEGG (ELDR, UK) making some amendments to the common position. These are as follows: - Community financial aid for construction and maintenance should remain highly exceptional, and the exceptions should be duly justified; - since the project may have considerable political and economical implications, it is important to find the appropriate balance between legislative oversight and flexibility in determining projects that merit potential Community support. The revision of Annex III by comitology procedure must be limited to modifications of a purely technical nature (for example, modifying a particular part of a specified route) but should not include substantial changes such as entirely new projects nor new country destinations, which would therefore remain subject to the codecision procedure; - priority projects will be compatible with sustainable development and meet the following criteria: they must have a significant impact on the competitive operation of the internal market and/or they must strengthen security of supply in the Community; - the Commission must report every two years rather than every four years.�

• 2003/06/02 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 2003/04/23 Vote in committee, 2nd reading
  • A5-0132/2003
• 2003/02/13 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 2nd reading
• #2484
• 2003/02/06 Council Meeting
  • 15767/2/2002 summary

    The main changes introduced by the Council are as follows: - Priorities : the Council divided priorities on the basis of their relevance to the electricity, or gas network or to both types of network, described clearly the character of projects of common interest and the additional criteria that a project need to fill in order to be eligible for Community financial aid provided under Council Regulation 2236/95; - The Council specified that results of environmental impact assessments, where requested in accordance with relevant Community legislation, have to be taken into consideration before actually taking a decision on carrying out projects in accordance with Community legislation; - The Council clarified the structure of the Annexes as follows: Annex I contains the Axes for the priority projects; Annex II contains (additional) criteria for projects of common interest. In doing so the Council endeavoured to provide some of the detailed information originally in the Annex III, thus trying to meet the European Parliament request; Annex III contains the projects of common interest, together with a description of their specifications. Of the 24 EP amendments, the Council accepted the following 15 which concern the following points: - underscores the importance of renewable energy sources in this context; - construction and maintenance of energy infrastructure should be subject to market principles; - energy infrastructure should allow the internal energy market to operate efficiently; - reference top the involvement of candidate countries' networks; - underlines that the objective should encourage effective operation of the internal market while also encouraging rational production and use of energy resources; - the aim should facilitate development in isolated regions, thus improving social and economic cohesion; - evaluation aspects, security of supply and contribution to economic and social cohesion; - specify the content of Annex I as priority axes; - modifications to Annex I are to be decided by co-decision; - special attention should be given to transborder projects; - an effort should be made to take effects on competition into account; - extending electricity to include integration of offshore wind energy; - stresses the importance of enhancing the use of renewable energies. Concerning the amendments not integrated into the common position, the Council considered that these were either not in coherence with the Decision, too restrictive or not within the scope of this Decision or were already covered by existing provisions and decided therefore not to integrate them in its common position. On the other hand, the common position does not incorporate the European Parliament amendments proposing: - preferential financial treatment for priority projects; - the requirement for a detailed evaluation of projects as a pre-condition for identifying them in the guidelines; - setting of a deadline for the Commission with regard to theinclusion of the new Member States in the guidelines; - refusal of committee procedure for updating the detailed project descriptions.�

• #2465
• 2002/11/25 Council Meeting
• 2002/10/24 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
  • T5-0515/2002 summary

    The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Edouard BEYSEN (EPP-ED, Belgium) on the trans-European energy networks. (Please refer to the document dated 01/10/02.) Parliament stated in the recitals that, as a general rule, the construction and maintenance of energy infrastructure should be subject to market principles. The creation of a competitive and integrated internal energy market can be achieved much more cost-effectively by revising current competition policy legislation than it can by merely increasing infrastructure capacity, since competition is often hindered not by bottlenecks, but by a lack of contestability in the markets or by oligopolistic concentration. Parliament went on to state that the Commission must submit a report describing the measures which are likely, in the event of an increase in Community subsidy from 10% to 20% to lead to more rapid completion of the relevant priority projects. Finally, Parliament stipulated that evaluation of economic viability must be based upon a cost-benefit analysis which takes into account environmental matters, security of supply and contribution to economic and social cohesion. Such an evaluation is a precondition for projects to be identified as projects of common interest.�

• 2002/10/01 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A5-0324/2002
• #2433
• 2002/06/06 Council Meeting
  • 2433
• 2002/03/11 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2001/12/20 Legislative proposal published
  • COM(2001)0775 summary

    PURPOSE : to present a proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision 1254/96/EC laying down a series of guidelines for trans-European energy networks. CONTENT : this proposed revision of the Guidelines for Trans-European Energy Networks (TEN-Energy) is based on an assessment of the operation of the Guidelines currently applying to them (cf. Report on the implementation of the guidelines for Trans-European Energy Networks in the period 1996-2001, please refer to COD/1994/0009 dated 20/12/01). This proposal takes account of the developments that have taken place in the energy market since 1996, and in particular the implementation of the Directives on liberalising the markets for electricity and natural gas, the trend towards increasing dependence on imported energy and the setting of higher targets for the penetration of renewable energy sources. The proposal also takes into consideration the action plan on the northern Dimension adopted by the European Council of Feira in June 2000 and reflects the progress made in the enlargement process and places specific stress on electricity interconnections with candidate countries. Essentially, this proposal is aimed at amending the TEN-Energy Guidelines by identifying a distinct category of priority projects among the projects of common interest. The category will include a restricted number of energy network projects which have very important impact from the point of view of the essential criteria of energy policy, i.e. completing the internal market and reinforcing security of supply. With regard to funding, in order to efficiently support those projects for which increased financial support is key to their completion, the Commission considers that, for priority projects, it will be necessary to provide for the possibility of raising the maximum rate of funding under the TEN Financial Support Regulation from 10% to 20%. The Commission will introduce this amendment in the revision of the TEN Financial Support Regulation which is underway. The proposal also aims to amend the TEN-Energy Guidelines as follows: - rearranging the priorities for TEN-Energy policy in the light of the developments which have taken place since 1996; - defining the projects of common interest more broadly (10 thematic projects instead of the current 90 detailed projects); - incorporating the detailed project definitions into the project specifications already provided for by the Guidelines; - making it clear that project identification does not prejudge the assessment of their environmental impact; - updating the provisions relating to the committee procedure without making any fundamental change; - extending the reporting period for the implementation reports from 2 to 4 years, given the submission of the Annual Report on the TENs which covers the three sectors. The measures in force concerning information and consultation with the public in the framework of Community environmental legislation will be respected.�

  • DG ['Energy and Transport'],

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(2001)0775
• Debate in Council: 2433
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A5-0324/2002
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0515/2002
• Council position published: 15767/2/2002
• Committee recommendation tabled for plenary, 2nd reading: A5-0132/2003
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading: T5-0245/2003
• : Decision 2003/1229
• : OJ L 176 15.07.2003, p. 0011-0029

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)