Poland to push new EU energy solidarity plan
PHILIPPA RUNNER
07.10.2008 @ 09:27 CET
Poland is planning to propose a new version of its previous government's energy solidarity pact plan, lowering the threshold for EU intervention in the event of a major supply crunch.
Under current EU rules, the bloc must react if there is a "significant" disruption of gas supplies affecting 20 percent of the EU's total consumption for eight weeks or more.
Warsaw - the previous energy solidarity pact plan fell on deaf ears in Brussels (Photo: EUobserver.com)
Poland wants the solidarity mechanism to kick in if disruption affects 50 percent of any one member state's imports however, covering a period of four weeks in winter and six weeks in summer - according to plans seen by Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
The proposal also calls for the EU to oblige member states to store a part of their gas resources as they do with oil, and for the union to begin funding cross-border energy infrastructure.
The scheme - to be unveiled at the EU summit on 15 October - would require tweaking existing directives rather than a grand new "energy solidarity treaty" as put forward by Poland's previous Kaczynski-twin government.
Energy security will also come up on the EU agenda on Friday (10 October), when transport and energy ministers in Luxembourg vote on the shape of the energy "unbundling" directive.
The draft new law is to force giant energy providers to legally separate their production and distribution networks to avoid distortion of competition.
'Gazprom clause'
The bill in its current form is to also cover non-EU investors, with a so-called "reciprocity clause" - dubbed the "Gazprom clause" - that would in practice limit vertically-integrated firms from third countries from buying up power grids inside Europe.
Germany is keen to blunt the impact of the new rules by introducing a change on who approves foreign takeovers of EU distribution assets, the Financial Times reports.
The original legislation says decisions are to be taken by the European Commission - the "guardian" of common EU interests. But Berlin wants the individual states involved in any deal to have the final say.
"This looks as if the commission is trying to dictate to Russia the way in which it should regulate the operation of its energy companies," a former advisor to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Sergey Yastrzhembsky, wrote in a recent paper for the Centre for European Reform.
