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Showing posts from November, 2014

French law proposal on energy transition for green growth to be discussed by the Senate starting 9 February 2015

  The law proposal on energy transition for green growth is currently going through the legislative procedure in France. While the lower house of the parliament, the National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale), voted on the text on 14 October , the upper house, the Senate, will discuss the text starting on 9 February 2015 . The debate in plenary session will follow the debates in committees, which will take place during the week of 19 January (Committee for Economic affairs and Committee for Sustainable Development). Committees will already hold a hearing with the minister in charge on 26 November 2014 . The French Ministry of Ecology and Energy has confirmed now the date, during a press meeting on the 2014 Environmental Conference.   Once adopted, the new law is tabled to enter into force in late 2015.   For a review of the provisions of the law proposal, I refer to my article  published by  Energy and Climate webmagazine here (in Norwegian).    Reference : Dossier de

IEA to launch assessment report of EU energy policies under 2030 targets on 1 December 2014

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) has a long tradition for assessing the energy policies of IEA countries, including most recently the ones of the European Union. On 1 December, the IEA will release its latest review of the energy policies of the EU . Of particular interest are the recommendations the IEA will provide as to target achievement under the new 2030 climate and energy strategy adopted by the heads of state and government on 23 October 2014 (see analysis in previous post here ).

"Resilience" as a new model for G20 countries' policy to better serve sustainable energy markets

Economic resilience to better serve energy markets and tackle climate change   In the aftermaths of a financial and budgetary crisis, faced with a slow economic recovery and forced to respond quickly to geopolitical and natural resources challenges of global character, the representatives from governments and central banks of the Group of the Twenty major economies (so-called G20 ) decided to put "resilience" at the heart of their action during their last meeting in Australia, 15-16 November 2014 .  " Strengthening the resilience of the global economy and stability of the financial system are crucial to sustaining growth and development ." (para. 12)  " Strong and resilient energy markets are critical to economic growth. " (para. 17) We should better get used to the concept of resilience , because it is now used extensively, lately by the newly appointed European Commission ( " resilient energy union with a forward-looking climate ch

Joint buying of gas at EU level: good that the EU is giving up the idea of mandatory mechanism. Voluntary joint purchasing still discussed.

    On 13 November 2014, media reported that EU Member States and the European Commission decided not to follow-up the proposal consisting in establishing a mandatory gas-purchasing body at EU level . This was confirmed by K.D. Borchardt, European Commission's director in charge of the internal energy market. The idea was proposed as part of the concept for Energy Union ahead of an EU summit on EU energy dependence in June. It was promoted by Donald Tusk, former Polish PM and forthcoming president of the European Council, but also relayed by the European Commission in its May 2014 Communication on a European Energy Security Strategy .   In a comment, I referred to the idea as an "EU contradiction" . After receiving questions on that qualification, I hereafter give the reasons why.  

EU Sanctions against Russia: Russian Companies take legal steps before the Court of Justice of the EU (press review)

The news came through the international press (e.g., in BloombergBusinessweek) which revealed last week that several Russian companies have started legal proceedings before the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The applications have been submitted to the Court in early October 2014, and challenge the EU sanctions adopted this year.   At least 6 Russian companies affected by the EU sanctions have taken the decision to sue the European Council : the oil Company Rosneft (T-715/14, submitted 9.10.2014), Gazprom Neft, and 4 banks under control of the Russian state (Sberbank in case T-732/14, VTB Bank in case T-734/14, Vnesheconombank in case T-737/14 and Prominvestbank in case T-739/14). The text of the applications is not available.

Speaking at NHO/Energy Norway Seminar on the new EU State Aid Guidelines for Environmental Protection and Energy (2014-2020) (NHO, Oslo, 5.11)

On 5 November 2014, I was commenting the New Guidelines on State Aid for Environmental protection and energy (2014-2020) which have been adopted by the European Commission in April 2014, and apply from 1 July 2014 until the end of 2020.   The organisers of the event were the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (Næringslivets Hovedorganisasjon, NHO) and Energy Norway (Energi Norge)   Full programme available here . The presentations from the seminar are available here .   Take contact for further information.