Following the first session of a two-day summit in Brussels, EU leaders came close to setting a goal of requiring 20% of Europe’s energy consumption to come from renewable sources by 2020. „What has apparently been agreed on today is a massive step forward,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a press conference late yesterday after chairing the meeting. „We’re talking about very, very ambitious goals.

There is still a need for further discussion on these issues, but there’s a very constructive climate of opinion.” The EU is seeking to reduce consumption of carbon-rich fossil fuels to fight global warming and to ease reliance on imports, which account for half the bloc’s energy. The EU’s energy-import dependency is due to rise to 65% by 2030. The EU wants to diversify energy sources to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas after spats between the Russian authorities and transit countries Ukraine and Belarus disrupted supplies to EU states at the beginning of this and last year.

The target for renewables would be „binding” in a draft statement to be finalized by the leaders today. The statement also affirms EU goals of a 20% greenhouse-gas reduction by 2020, or 30% if other rich countries such as the US go along. The EU also set a goal of 20% overall energy savings by 2020.

 

During the debate on binding targets, the main opposition came from eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004. Their fast-growing economies are dependent on the use of cheap coal and the import of oil and natural gas. Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary said the cost of mandatory targets would be too high and would be unrealistic for some nations.

„We are able to support the word binding under conditions that specifics of each country are taken into consideration,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico told journalists. „The 20% should be effective for the EU as a whole. We can guarantee a 12% share by 2020. Let’s not put unrealistic pledges on the table.”

 

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said the European Commission, the EU’s executive agency, would work out how to spread the burden among the 27 EU countries. The current renewables goal is 12% in 2010. Denmark, which gets more than 20% of its electricity from wind power, supported mandatory targets. „The EU should go green,” Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview.

„I think we should focus much stronger on renewable energy.” Other countries, including smaller EU members such as Cyprus and Malta, said nations should be given flexibility because of national circumstances. „We have to care about some countries like Malta for example, where this 20% is impossible to reach,” Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said in an interview.

 

French President Jacques Chirac, appearing at his second-to-last summit meeting, said renewable energies should be one part of the EU’s goal of promoting other low-carbon sources to fight climate change. „The distribution of the effort on renewable energies must take into account the share of low-carbon energies – nuclear and clean coal – in our national energy choices,” Chirac said.

France gets about 80% of its electricity from nuclear power. While approaching an accord on renewable energies, the leaders opposed a plan to force the breakup of utilities to bolster competition in the €250 billion ($328 billion) electricity and natural-gas markets.

The European Commission wants to split energy utilities such as E.ON AG and Electricite de France SA into separate production and transmission businesses to make networks accessible to companies without their own grids. Merkel said the commission’s plan goes too far. She said the summit will endorse a compromise reached by energy ministers on February 15 for a softer approach than the breakup of companies. (Bloomberg)