{"id":4215,"date":"2020-03-01T13:07:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T13:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=4215"},"modified":"2024-12-04T06:26:51","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T06:26:51","slug":"momentum-builds-for-a-united-energy-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=4215","title":{"rendered":"Momentum builds for a united energy front"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Click:<a href=\"https:\/\/vanillagiftscard.org\/\">check balance my gift card<\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"art\"><figcaption>\n<p>Mitch Blunt<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<header>\n<h1>Momentum builds for a united energy front<\/h1>\n<p class=\"subhead\">Prepare for an increase in bureaucratic and political infighting over the scope of the project.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<footer class=\"meta\">\n<p>\n\t\t\tBy\t\t\t<span class=\"byline\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"vcard\">Anca Gurzu<\/span>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"timestamp\">10\/17\/15, 12:43 PM CET<\/p>\n<p class=\"updated\">Updated 10\/22\/15, 10:50 PM CET<\/p>\n<\/footer>\n<p>The energy union, the flagship project of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, is starting to take shape \u2014 transforming from a nebulous theory into an actual policy that aims to tie Europe\u2019s energy markets together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is possible to trade fruits or cars freely across borders but it is still impossible to send energy freely from one end of Europe to the other,\u201d said Jerzy Buzek, former Polish prime minister and now an MEP and chair of the European Parliament\u2019s industry and energy committee.<\/p>\n<p>The energy union is supposed to change all that, and most of the legislative proposals set to give shape to the project will come out in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>That means an increase in bureaucratic and political infighting over the scope of the project as initiatives begin to wend their way through the European Parliament and national capitals.<\/p>\n<p>The original idea came from Donald Tusk, now the European Council president, when he was still Poland\u2019s prime minister. In 2014, he issued a call for the EU to help defang Gazprom\u2019s market dominance in central Europe by creating an energy union that would allow the bloc to use its muscle to negotiate with Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>That fairly narrow program was then taken over by Juncker when he began his Commission presidency and broadened to give it support across the whole EU, not just in central Europe.<\/p>\n<p>The current scheme has five elements:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Energy security (to reduce the bloc\u2019s dependence on Russian gas).<\/li>\n<li>Internal energy markets (better connecting countries through more pipelines and power grids).<\/li>\n<li>Energy efficiency (consuming less energy to reduce pollution and cut the EU\u2019s demand for energy imports).<\/li>\n<li>Decarbonization (reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 from 1990s levels and reforming the bloc\u2019s Emissions Trading System, its main tool for fighting climate change)<\/li>\n<li>Research and innovation (encouraging breakthroughs in low-carbon technologies).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>While the broad, and relatively uncontroversial, idea of an energy union has been generally welcomed by EU states, industry and civil society groups, the project is gaining complexity as it moves from Juncker\u2019s desk through the bureaucracies of Brussels and the 28 member states.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-frag-list layout-linear article-in-this-section\">\n<li><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In a city that loves lists, the energy union has a very long one and that only increases the possibility for objections and delay. There are 43 actions that have to be checked off in coming years. The Commission plans to seek a redesign of the bloc\u2019s electricity market, review the laws overseeing the security of electricity and gas supplies, come up with a strategy for liquefied natural gas, and review the renewables and energy efficiency directives for 2030.<\/p>\n<p>The final goal is to tear down the physical and regulatory barriers to the free flow of electricity, oil and gas across the bloc.<br \/>Click Here: <a href='https:\/\/www.ifootballshop.com\/italy-football-shop.html' title='Italy Football Shop'>Italy Football Shop<\/a><br \/>\nAnd there\u2019s a deadline: The Commission would like to have the energy union\u2019s foundations set by the time Juncker leaves office in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you look at the map of the European Union, we don\u2019t have a rational system of interconnectors complete,\u201d Miguel Arias Ca\u00f1ete, the climate action and energy commissioner, said in September during an event sponsored by POLITICO.<\/p>\n<p>But getting there won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know that expectations are high, not only here in the Parliament, but also amongst the many stakeholders I have met,\u201d Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, the Commission\u2019s vice president for energy union, told MEPs on October 6.<\/p>\n<p>\u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, a Slovak, has been visiting EU countries in an effort to pitch the initiatives to people on the ground and build support for the project.<\/p>\n<p>He is set to present the first so-called state of the energy union in Brussels on November 18, when he\u2019ll spell out the results of his country tours, including countries\u2019 strengths and weaknesses on energy and climate.<\/p>\n<p>\u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d told MEPs it should keep and, where necessary, give additional momentum on this key flagship initiative.<br \/>\nMany of the ideas of the energy union aren\u2019t actually all that new. An EU-wide internal energy market \u2014 one of the main elements of the energy union \u2014 was supposed to have happened by December 2014. The deadline wasn\u2019t met, however.<\/p>\n<p>The energy union also doesn\u2019t change EU treaties, which means countries continue to have a final say over their energy choice and mix. That will allow the French to continue generating power with nuclear power, the Poles to use coal, and the Danes to stress wind power.<\/p>\n<p>The difference now, EU and national officials insist, is that there is strong \u201cpolitical will\u201d behind the project.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, there\u2019s \u201ca bit for everybody in the energy union,\u201d said Georg Zachmann, research fellow at the Bruegel think tank.<br \/>\nFor example, while Germany is already doing well on gas security, more interconnections and cooperation with neighbors on electricity should help make the country\u2019s pricey Energiewende, its long-term plan to transition to renewable energy, more cost-efficient.<\/p>\n<p>Poland stands to gain from Commission proposals regarding gas contracts, which would allow Brussels bureaucrats to see them before they are signed, weeding out illegal provisions that enhance Gazprom\u2019s market power.<\/p>\n<p>The main beneficiaries of the energy union will be consumers, the Commission contends. Linking national electricity grids will ensure that \u201cenergy will flow from one country to another and that there is no possibility of a blackout,\u201d said Monique Goyens, director-general of BEUC, the European Consumer Organization.<\/p>\n<p>But getting there is going to require a lot of negotiations, during which countries will have to give up some of their national priorities in order to build a union that benefits the EU as a whole, Bruegel\u2019s Zachmann says in a paper.<\/p>\n<p>For example, East Europeans are not sold on the EU\u2019s desire to boost renewables.<\/p>\n<p>France and Spain are also reluctant.<\/p>\n<p>Also, why should consumers in France and Spain have to pitch in for a gas pipeline that would allow Spanish LNG to cross the rest of Europe, benefitting Poles and Latvians, but not their own citizens?<\/p>\n<p>Getting countries to drop those kinds of concerns and pull together is going to keep Arias Ca\u00f1ete and \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d very busy over the next year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<footer class=\"content-credits\">\n<h6>Authors:<\/h6>\n<dl class=\"vcard\">\n<dt class=\"credits-author\"><span class=\"vcard\">Anca Gurzu<\/span>&nbsp;<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/footer>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click:check balance my gift card Mitch Blunt Momentum builds for a united energy front Prepare for an increase in bureaucratic and political infighting over the scope of the project. By Anca Gurzu 10\/17\/15, 12:43 PM CET Updated 10\/22\/15, 10:50 PM CET The energy union, the flagship project of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, is starting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11554,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions\/11554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}