Energy Commissioner backs reduced speed limits to save oil
LISBETH KIRK
08.04.2005 @ 09:48 CET
Due to rising oil prices, the EU’s energy commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, has backed an idea of the International Energy Agency to reduce European speed limits to 90 km per hour (55.9 miles per hour).
"I personally support the idea", Mr Piebalgs said in an interview with Die Welt.
"When cars in Germany race along the roads at a speed of 200 km per hour, of course they use a lot of petrol", the commissioner pointed out.
Although, as energy commissioner, Mr Piebalgs is not responsible for this area, he is in favour of a general EU discussion on the issue.
The idea comes as oil-prices hit a new record this week and the International Monetary Fund warned that the world faces "a permanent oil shock" and needs to adjust to higher prices in the next two decades.
Germany is one of the few EU countries without general speed limits. In most countries the maximum speed is limited to between 90-130 km per hour.
Last year, a broad majority of German politicians and parties were, however, prepared to introduce speed restrictions, but the government in the end stepped back from taking the controversial move.
Setting the speed limit to 90 km per hour would raise too many strong emotions in Germany, according to the Social Democrat chairman of the German parliament’s environment committee, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker.
He suggested other solutions be considered such as technical developments, according to Financial Times Deutschland.
The European Central Bank has also recently urged consumers to become "good energy savers".
Speaking after a monthly rate-setting meeting on Thursday, Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president, described higher oil prices as "very unwelcome for global growth" and added the sharp rise in oil prices had changed the ECB's "perspective".
According to the IEA's World Energy Outlook the transport sector is responsible for almost 60% of oil consumption in the OECD countries.
