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SOUTH WEST FIRST

This is in place of my usual Letter from Strasbourg

December 2001  

Security of Supply of Energy in Europe.

  Here is the text of my personal explanatory statement on the Chichester Report on Security of Supply of Energy in Europe.  It was the basis of my speech on this topic in the Plenary Session in November

Three main points are made in the Green paper.  First, that the European Union (EU) will become increasingly dependent on external energy sources, reaching 70% in 2030.  Second the EU has very limited scope to influence energy supply conditions so it is on the demand side where the EU can intervene, mostly through promoting energy saving in buildings and in the transport sector.  Third, in present circumstances, the EU is not in a position to respond to the challenge of climate change and to meet its commitments, notably under the Kyoto Protocol. 

One thing above all else is staring us in the face and that is the massive dependence on oil and on imported oil in particular.  For common sense reasons of security of supply and protection of the environment, urgent steps should be taken to address this disproportionate dependence.  We cannot alter the fact of where the oil comes from, but we can do a number of things on the demand side, in particular in the transport sector.  Being dependent on imports is neither necessarily a bad thing nor economically inefficient provided the sources are diverse, no one supplier is dominant and we can produce sufficient goods and services to pay for them. 

The Commission is correct to focus on demand management measures as a first priority and it is to be hoped that Member States will pursue this approach vigorously.  However I do not accept the view that little or nothing can be done on the supply side.  In four areas the EU and Member States can be masters of their own destiny to make a real difference both to security of supply and to protection of the environment.

Renewable energy sources (RES) are by definition indigenous supplies and we are correct to seek to increase their share of final consumption and electricity generation.  However let us be realistic, even if the ambitious targets for RES are met, they cannot be expected to replace any of the other energy sources completely or become the sole supplier of all our energy needs as one of its more enthusiastic advocates told the Energy Committee Hearing. 

Nuclear energy is not popular in some quarters but it supplies the greatest share of electricity in Europe of any energy source, it provides large volume base load power and produces hardly any greenhouse gas emissions. It is a safe and secure European technology operated under stringent standards of regulation.  To deliberately deny ourselves of this major source of electricity seems perverse in the absence of an alternative volume source of supply.  There are satisfactory solutions to the issue of waste for those willing to listen to them.

Coal is a source of energy in decline in Europe, because of cost and environmental concerns, yet it is an important indigenous resource which could be given a new lease of life, so to speak, with new technology to make it more efficient and less pollutant.  Furthermore there is huge scope for gaining business in the rest of the world for European suppliers of equipment and systems if the industry can seize the opportunity. 

The fourth area is, of course, in research work for future technologies and energy systems.   That is something Europe must do in order to safeguard future security of supply, future employment and technology.  It seems obvious but needs repeating.

For all of the above reasons I also disagree with the view that the EU cannot meets its Kyoto commitments.  What is needed is realism on the nuclear issue, determined effort on clean coal technology, much encouragement for RES, co-ordinated demand management measures (i.e. avoiding simplistic taxation only solutions) and a sustained effort to inform public opinion about the necessity to stop wasting energy.

Finally, we must remember that Europe is not an island unto itself and that is why we are concerned about security of supply and import dependency.  Demand for energy is rising everywhere and Europe must compete with that rising demand in the rest of the world for the energy that is vital to our way of life.  Furthermore, the events of 11^th September serve to remind us there can be strategic reasons for seeing our security of supply as being at risk and reinforce the need for action along the lines I have already set out.   

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

   GILES CHICHESTER MEP

LETTER FROM BRUSSELS  

OCTOBER 2001

A WEEK IN BRUSSELS

From the start of my first term as MEP, I have published a monthly programme to show what I do and where. Occasionally, I cover something different such as the study of trade and payments figures, which I did last year.  This time, I thought, having done one letter from Strasbourg this month, I would describe a Brussels week for a change, starting Monday 15^th October.

Normally I would catch a Eurostar from Waterloo early enough to reach my office in Brussels by 12.30 (two hours 43 minutes plus the hour's time difference), but on this day I had to change the routine in order to attend a memorial service in London.  This was a sad occasion for me because we were remembering the life of Monica Cooper who worked for my father and with me in our family map publishing business from 1949 until 1994.  It was pretty much like saying goodbye to a member of the family.

It was a bad day for travel, as well, because the train I was intending to catch in the afternoon was cancelled due to a strike in Belgium, so we had to do some fast footwork to find an alternative route, in order that I could make my evening com-mitment in Brussels.  In the end I was able to reach Heathrow in time to catch a Sabena  flight, though it seemed in doubt as I had to wait nearly half an hour for a Heathrow

tube train at Hammersmith and only just got there in time.  I have learned to adopt a fatalistic patience in such situations, along the line of, if you can't affect it, don't fret about it, but even so, one is not entirely immune to anxiety!

I had spent the morning in my London office dictating a tape of replies to constituency corres-pondence to send to my secretary Moyra in Exeter, in between phone calls to Brussels and Exeter about travel arrangements.  Had I taken the morning train I would have had to get off at Lille and be taken by coach to Brussels, so all in all it was a tricky day for travel.

The evening commitment (I had missed afternoon meetings of my Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy Committee, as well as the co-ordinators of the committee) was a dinner discussion with a visiting team from the South West RDA (Regional Development Agency) headed by Chairman, Sir Michael Lickiss.  I was late, but only by a few minutes.  The discussion focussed on the role of the RDA, its relationship with the regions MEPs (four of us were there) and the Commission, the launch of a new South West office to represent the local authorities of the whole region, as well as all the issues facing one part or another of the South West.

Of course, all this presumes the region is more than just an artificial construct by the Labour Government and the European Commission trying to persuade the different parts that they really are one region.  I see no sign of this on

the ground, and little enthusiasm for it except among certain parts of the political chattering classes otherwise known as the Lib Dems.  Nevertheless the RDA exists and we must work with it as best we can.  My colleague Caroline Jackson suggested one possible regional role for the RDA could be to co-ordinate solutions to the big challenge of waste disposal under new tougher European legislation.

This gave me the opportunity to suggest RDA could stand for Rubbish Disposal Agency but this was greeted with barely polite laughter by the RDA people.  Also present was the new head of the new representative office.  She was a charming young woman whom I subsequently learned comes from Greece.  She knew lots about all the hot air regional proposals of the European Commission and its President Mr Prodi (good on talk, even better at not doing much), but I gather she had not actually been to the South West at the time she was appointed.

Tuesday morning at nine sharp I am in Committee, electronic voting card at the ready for a long stint of voting.  The main piece of business was part of the Caudron Report on the Commission proposal for a 6^th Framework Programme of European Research 2002-2006, and I mean only part, because we had nearly 600 amendments from Committee members plus several hundred in the opinions of all the other committees to vote on.  In addition we had nearly 160 amendments to my own Report on the Security of Supply of Energy in Europe.  Normally, we vote on a show of hands, but if there are many close results which require counting by the secretariat staff of the Committee, it can take a lot of time, so we try to use committee rooms fitted with electronic voting to speed matters up.

Even so we did not complete voting until after twelve and as coordinator I have to put my hand up for every single vote, electronic or not, to show thumbs up, thumbs down or hand flat for yes, no or abstain.  So it gets a bit tiring.  Things went reasonably well at first as we seemed to be winning most of the contested votes on the research report, but when it came to my report there was a turn for the worse.  A number of my EPP-ED (European People's Party-European Democrats, of which we Conservatives are allied members) colleagues went off to vote in another committee where other important votes on legislation were taking place.  My report is not a legislative one. 

Then the Liberals teamed up with the Greens and Socialists on the issue of nuclear energy and a few other aspects, so I found myself suffering the indignity of both having parts of my draft text suppressed and having alternative Green text inserted instead.  My attempts at compromise along the lines of "I will accept most of your text as an addition if you don't delete chunks of mine so we include both the points of view", were unsuccessful.  I emerged from the long session feeling distinctly bruised and defeated with only the minor amusement of hearing a new definition of Greens as genetically modified Communists.  I am thinking hard on how I can recover the situation.

In the afternoon I have a meeting with representatives of the Steel Industry which is having a tough time of it, what with the burden of Labour's Climate Change Levy in the U.K. and protectionist measures by the U.S.A., as well as competition from cheap imports from unlikely places like Russia, to contend with.  The Climate Change

Levy is a classic illustration of how good intentions get to become a too clever by half idea, which does little to improve the environment, while significantly damaging the competitiveness of U.K. industry through fiscal and administrative burdens which don't apply in other countries.

Next I have to dash to the Working Group B meeting where EPP-ED members of the various committees of the Parliament (including my Industry Committee) carried on discussing items on the agenda for the next weeks plenary session.  I have to discuss the possibility of a Statement from the Commission on aspects of safety in travel and transport arising from the events of 11^th September.  This will be used by the Greens as an opportunity to mount another attack on nuclear energy in parallel with a move by Irish MEPs to raise for the umpteenth time, the issue of Sellafield and the nuclear fuel reprocessing done there by British Nuclear Fuels.  The general strategy agreed with my counterpart co-ordinator on the Transport Committee is to try to have the item deferred until the November plenary session when Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio would be able to attend and respond or, failing that, to have a debate without a written resolution.  We shall see.

After that it is back to my office for an interview with the BBC about my views on the new regional office.  I try to be polite in expressing the hope that it will help the region, while hinting strongly at my reservations about the whole regional agenda being pursued by both the Labour Government and the European Commission, albeit for rather different motives.  I don't think the South West as presently defined, is a coherent and integrated entity and I do think it was better served by smaller representative offices covering smaller areas, just as I think it was better served by constituency MEPs.

Then I have to head off for a most important engagement, namely half an hour of kinesitherapie for a bout of brachial neuralgia in my shoulder.  Massage in other words, but I thought I would put it that way before anyone leapt to quite the wrong conclusion.  Immediately after that I am in a meeting with the Treasurer of the EPP-ED Group and the Secretary General of the Group to discuss financial matters, wearing my hat as Treasurer to the UK delegation of Conservative MEPs.

On the Wednesday morning I have a German lesson for an hour first thing followed by a meeting at ten a.m. with a couple of chaps from Astrium, lobbying about aerospace matters.  In particular, they wanted to talk about Galileo, the proposed European alternative to and competitor with GPS (the American satellite global positioning system).  After that there was a visit from Mr Kessler of Eutop, a German consultancy, to talk about his company.  I should add that it was he that organised a visit I made recently to Leipzig, to see the new Power Exchange there and the

headquarters of Verbundnetsgaz A.G., a major gas supply industry.  Still in the morning I attended the routine meeting for all EPP-ED co-ordinators from all the committees.  Sometimes I need to intervene on matters relating to my committee  but this time I was able to sit and listen to the discussion with one ear, while working my way through a file of correspondence, emails and invitations which accumulates in Brussels when I am elsewhere.

At lunchtime we have a working lunch of Conservative spokesmen to discuss the business of the next

week's plenary agenda and sort out any difficulties over a line to take.  The main topic of conversation was inevitably at present, the campaign against terrorism and the EU response.  Immediately after that we have a meeting of the full delegation of Conservative MEPs for a briefing on any particular points on the plenary agenda followed by a discussion on more general issues.  At 3.30 that meeting breaks up, so we can move on to the next one, this time a full meeting of the Group, or in my case a private meeting with three representatives of EURELECTRIC, the Europe wide trade association of the electricity industry.  We discuss the results of voting on my security of supply report and the priorities they would like to see included.

And so it goes on with a series of meetings, either pre-planned by appointment or arranged at short notice with colleagues or secretariat staff to discuss something or other until the early evening.

On Thursday morning I think I have a relatively clear diary which should give me time to go through some of the piles of accumulated documents in my office, with a view to discard some, and reminding myself about others.  Wrong.  I have forgotten appointments that I have agreed to do, but must have been in enough of a rush not to write them into my pocket diary.  At 9.30 a visit from a consultant to discuss re-scheduling a proposed visit to a metals re-cycling plant in Belgium for colleagues on the Industry Committee, which I had to postpone to make way for a visit by a group from the House of Lords Select Committee wanting to talk about the security of supply of electricity.  Next I have two visitors from ETSO (the European Transmission System Operators) who want to talk about the draft directive on cross border trading in electricity.  This is interesting stuff for me to discuss the politics behind the attitudes of the Spanish and the Germans, both of whom have a particular agenda they are pursuing.  The Germans don't have a national regulator for energy and don't like the directive requirement that there should be one in each Member State.  The Spanish feel blocked from access to European markets by the French (well don't we all, as far as that goes!).

At 11.30 it is time to switch topics to telecoms and listen to the eloquent advocate of Orange arguing against certain amendments by colleagues to the various directives that make up the telecom package, on the subjects of roaming, call termination and the relationship between the European Commission and the NRAs (National Regulatory Authorities). Immediately after that I have to pack my briefcase and join in an all too rushed glass of wine with my outgoing assistant Pauline, who is leaving me to join the enemy, so to speak, by taking a job in the European Commission.  I am very sorry to lose her, but hope that my new assistant Natalie will prove equal to the challenge.  

My final meeting before heading for the airport was lunch with the new Director of the Joint Research Centre.  This is the inhouse research entity of the Commission.  He is a splendid Irishman called Barry McSweeney who is good company and a skilful operator.  He is gently lobbying me about one or two amendments to the 6^th Framework Programme.

Then its rush to the airport, fly to London Heathrow, tube in to the centre of town, drop my bags at my London office and home before pressing on to keep my five o'clock  appointment with my counterparts in the new team of shadow ministers covering trade and industry in the new Portcullis House.  This is an important part of my brief as Conservative spokesman in the European Parliament, to maintain good contacts with the home team and we mostly discuss organisational matters about how to meet, when and where.  It seems a good start to me, rather in keeping with what seems a good start by Iain Duncan Smith and his team overall, even though it is early days.

Friday sees me heading south west by early morning train to Exeter, where I collect a car and drive to Newton Abbot to talk to a bunch of students at Coombeshead College.  They ask me a lot of good questions about biological and chemical warfare, and aspects of my work as an MEP.  I feel on my mettle, which is very good for me.  Then I drive on to Prawle Point to visit the lookout that the National Coastwatch Institution is building and man all year round during daylight hours with volunteers. This is splendid stuff, they are doing a good job in the fine tradition of voluntary work that is so important in our country.  Then I drive home for a brief pause before heading up the A303 for an evening Conservative function at Bourton & Silton near Wincanton. The questions are penetrating here as well.

The week ends for me after a foray to Broadmayne near Dorchester for a coffee morning and discussion, by watching on video the Ireland/ England Rugby International.  Disappointing result, but I suppose we can't win them all.