More hot air from EU on climate

EU leaders to focus on energy, climate change at summit



BRUSSELS (AFP) - EU leaders will try to breathe new life this week into plans to diversify energy sources and combat climate change at a summit in Brussels amid fears they will only blow "hot air", officials and experts said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will step on to the centre stage of EU politics at the Thursday and Friday meeting when she hosts the 27-nation bloc's leaders for the first time under Germany's six-month presidency.
Officials said that energy policy would be in the focus after climbing high on the EU political agenda over the last year on concerns about the reliability of Russia as a supplier and the need to find less polluting sources.
Despite the growing importance attached to energy, the EU has struggled to hammer out a common approach, with member countries often putting national interests first, much to the frustration of the
European Commission' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> European Commission.
Preparing the ground for the heads of state and government, EU energy ministers moved closer last month to a unified policy by agreeing cleaner fuel targets while watering down a proposal to force the break-up of the sector into production and distribution operators.
"It's going to be a climate and energy summit, these are the issues that are uppermost in our mind," a senior EU official said Friday.
"The only really outstanding question is exactly how ambitious we should be," the official added.
Although the ministers agreed that renewable energy sources should account for a minimum 10 percent of the EU's overall make-up by 2020, the leaders are to consider making a 20-percent target binding.
However, some countries are concerned about setting unreachable targets, with one top diplomat having warned that "there's only a slight difference between high ambitions and recklessness," according to the official.
But if the only haggling is likely to be over how ambitious to be, that is in part because member states have already scrapped the most radical and controversial proposals.
In particular, draft conclusions from the summit seen by AFP make no firm commitment to making integrated energy companies break up their businesses into separate production and distribution operators.
Unbundling, as it is known, was one of the European Commission's main proposals in sweeping plans it unveiled in January, but which ran up against fierce resistance from some member states and especially France.
"Energy policy will rightly be top of the agenda at (the) EU summit," experts at the European Policy Centre said in an analysis released on Friday.
"But there is a real danger that, instead of taking the key decisions which are needed now on the European Commission's energy package, the Union's leaders will simply generate a great deal more hot air," they added.
The summit comes amid a shifting European political landscape with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi emerging shaken from a recent crisis, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair' Tony Blair increasingly a lameduck and looming French presidential elections in April and May.
It will also mark French
President Jacques Chirac' last summit in Brussels, where he has attracted both scorn and respect for fiercely defending French interests and making occasional gaffes during his nearly 12 years in office.
The meeting will also give Merkel an opportunity to cement her reputation as the rising star of European politics after she was widely applauded for her debut on the EU stage at the end of 2005 by playing a key role in brokering the bloc's long-term budget.