November 17, 2008

Energy now 'top priority' of EU Budget Reform


On 12 November a conference on the findings of the broad consultation on reform of the EU budget, which took place between September 2007 and April this year, revealed that widespread backing exists among public, private and NGO stakeholders for energy policy to rank among the top priorities for EU spending. The ascendancy of energy issues alongside climate change and competitiveness concerns is the most eyecatching finding arising from what is effectively the first indication towards the make-up of the post-2013 period budget.

The findings represent a massive change in grassroots thinking and, if acted upon by the Commission and Member States, in the long-term, may have huge implications for well established policies such as the CAP. Budget and Financial Programming Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite stated that this evidence sent out a very serious signal to politicians about the need to develop new policies to face the energy challenges that Europe is facing. She added that this indicated that extensive financial resources should be allocated to improved interconnections to improve
energy supply security, research on energy efficiency, investments in new technologies and renewable energy
sources.

Conference papers: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/reform/conference/documents_en.htm

Posted by iroronan at November 17, 2008 09:39 AM