In a tweet posted late Friday evening 15 May, the Vice President of the Commission in charge of Energy Union, Maros Sefcovic (picture), announced that he will reveal on Monday 19 May "the next phase" of the Energy Union Strategy, during a press conference scheduled at 12 a.m. Based on a preliminary presentation of his head of Cabinet this week, this next phase will concentrate on the Governance element of the Energy Union Strategy. The European Commission should launch the process of governance as well as the associated "EU tools" as called so far.
The first step will be for the Commission to send "country fiches" to all Member States. The idea is apparently to get a detailed overview and understanding of the energy sector of each Member State, seen from a Commission's perspective. Based on the assessment made by the Commission services, Member States will be given several month to provide their feedback.
The next step will be the release in october/november 2015 of a "State of the Energy Union Paper". This will serve as the basis for the next follow-up exercise. As of 2016, each Member State should submit a "National Energy and Climate Plan" to the European Commission. The Commission intends to pursue a "deep dialogue" with Member States on the framing of national energy sectors based on these new tools.
For sure, discussions around the sovereignty of Member States over their national energy mix and the competence of the Commission within energy policy will continue to animate the debates.
Picture credit (c) European Union 2015
Comments