The purpose of this report is to justify liberalising the energy markets – mainly the electricity but also the natural gas market. Basically, this means taking this strategically important industry away from the public sector and giving it to private-sector companies to run so that they can increase their profits. The state then merely regulates the private monopolies and ensures that guidelines issued by the European Union are complied with and it is the country's economy and its people that pay the price. The whole thrust of the report is geared away from serving the interests of the people – the interests of the man in the street – and growth in the national economy and towards serving the interests of large monopolies. The report contains quite a few inaccuracies in its bid to present the liberalisation of the energy market in an attractive light. For example, it is not true that competition has reduced prices and created jobs in Great Britain. In the 4-5 years since electricity was privatised, prices have increased substantially, jobs have been lost and there is no longer a national, long-term electricity development programme. Elsewhere, the same report admits that jobs have been lost as a result of liberalisation, but considers that new jobs will be created in non-productive sectors, on the stock exchange, in advertising, in financial services and so forth According to a study by the Public Power Corporation in Greece, the present staff of 32,000 will be cut to 20,000 and numerous services which are crucial to both the PPC and the economy of Greece, such as the production of new technologies, power station studies etc. will be abolished as a result of the liberalisation of the electricity market. Privatisation and liberalisation will push up prices, especially to consumers on the small Aegean islands, who pay a price per kilowatt/hour several times below cost. It is also unacceptable that a public-sector corporation should be forced to allow private-sector companies to use its highly valuable transmission and distribution grid in the name of so-called competition. If the EU really wanted healthy competition, as it itself understands the term, it would force the private sector to create its own grid and generating stations and compete with public corporations, rather than force the public corporations to 'offer' their grid to their competitors. This is simply a way of making it easier to shift assets to large companies. It is for precisely this reason that an attempt is being made to separate sectors, thereby preventing public-sector corporations from operating with a view to optimising vertically integrated activities and become competitive. Generating electricity is not the same as producing a simple commodity. The energy sector is crucial to the economic development of a country and vital to its defence. Consequently, liberalising the energy markets jeopardises both the security of a country and its economic growth. This risk can clearly be discerned; as the report stresses, 'In a frontier-free Europe, public utilities must operate in the single market. These firms are no longer strictly national; nor are their shareholders'. The MEPs have therefore voted against Mr Mombaur's report.

Political group: GUE-NGL