Mr President, I should first of all like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Langen, for presenting a really good report. We in the Committee have gone along to the greatest possible degree – in fact, unanimously – with the proposal to again take up important requests for changes which arose out of the first reading and which have not been taken into account by the Council although we were very happy – and I say this here too, Mr Langen – that extensive approaches to Parliament were made. It is a declared goal of the European Union to double the proportion of renewable sources of energy consumed by the year 2010. Parliament and the Commission were already in agreement on this in the debate on the Green and White Papers. The Council too has supported their stance in the common position we have before us. Although it is clear that the technical potential available from wind power and solar energy, from biomass, from water power and from geothermal energy could cover considerably more than 12% of energy consumption by 2010, we know that achieving just this 12% will require great efforts, judging by growth rates in the past. This means that the Member States must do their homework. It also means that the European Union must make greater headway than in the past. For this to happen, it is necessary, on the one hand, to facilitate fair access to the grid for electricity from renewable energy sources. I would point out to the Commissioner that Parliament awaits the relevant proposals which must be such as to contribute to real market penetration. The close connection between conditions of access to the grid and growth rates in the proportion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources is something we can see from the above-average rates of increase in Denmark, Germany and also Spain. But what we are concerned with today is the ALTENER programme. It is the only EU programme which alone has the promotion of renewable energy sources as its goal. This programme is also the main instrument for implementing the Community strategy for renewable energy sources and it is therefore also the main instrument of the breakthrough campaign for renewable sources of energy. By means of this campaign, we want to introduce photovoltaic systems with a maximum output of one million kilowatts within the European Union and in developing countries. Among other things, 15 million square metres of solar collectors are to be erected. 10,000 megawatts are to be obtained from wind power and a further 10,000 megawatts from biomass. This campaign has to be financed from resources of the Member States, privately and with European funds. The Commission had earmarked the amount of EUR 81.1 million for the four-year period from 1998 to 2002 in the ALTENER programme. According to the Commission’s estimates, the breakthrough campaign alone requires public financing to the tune of approximately EUR 7 billion by the year 2003. That is to say, EUR 7 billion which has to come from the Member States and from the European Union. We know that this 81.1 million would only be a drop in the ocean, but we cannot, under any circumstances, accept that this sum should again be reduced to EUR 74 million, as specified in the common position. I would therefore urge you, ladies and gentlemen, to endorse this position of the Committee, which has been unanimously adopted, in tomorrow’s vote and to also ensure that corresponding decisions are taken in the budget votes.

Political group: PSE