Mr President, I would like to start by reiterating, with reference to the legislation on cross-border exchanges in electricity, that this law uses a number of measures to benefit a truly EU-wide internal market. There are to be funds to compensate transit networks for their services. In the Member States, charges on producers in respect of cross-border exchanges in electricity will be harmonised in order to avoid different competition conditions prevailing in different states. Bottlenecks in the networks will be apportioned in accordance with the laws of the market rather than on a territorial basis, and tariffs will no longer be determined by the distance between the contracting parties, but solely on the basis of the physical flow. It is also a good thing that this law opens the way for new electricity plant to be properly sited, specifically in the vicinity of centres of consumption, and not, for example, where the primary energy used is especially cheap, thereby giving rise to massive new transport networks. Taken together, all three laws that we are adopting are milestones for the EU’s internal market. After fifteen years of discussion, they are putting into practice the freedoms in the area of energy that the Union’s citizens were guaranteed in the Treaties – freedom of establishment, free movement of goods and freedom to provide services. These directives make these quite explicit. Moreover, they mean that the competition will put pressure on European firms to perform well, and it is to be hoped that these will soon, to an ever-increasing extent, discover their roles and capabilities in the global market. Let me make it abundantly clear, however, that those who make laws can do no more than grant citizens freedoms; it is the adult citizen alone who can make use of them. It is like an election. Voting in one is a right, but it is for the citizens to decide whether or not to exercise it; the reciprocity of supply and demand in the areas of electricity and gas is likewise something that the public have to understand and of which they have to avail themselves. This legislation hinges upon the question of how the remaining technical monopolies – the networks – are to be brought to market in such a way as to make competition possible. These laws contain important provisions for this purpose, in that, firstly, they put the networks themselves under the aegis of their own companies; secondly, they create regulatory systems in the Member States to guarantee neutral management of the networks; and thirdly – something that has been particularly important to Parliament – they govern the way in which these regulatory authorities in the Member States cooperate with one another and with the Commission, so that we do not end up with fifteen – and soon as many as twenty-five – different approaches in the Member States’ regulatory authorities. There is one thing I want to make perfectly clear, and in doing so I am following on from what Mr Turmes said. If, after a number of years, Parliament or – Madam Vice-President – the Commission should find that this legislation has still not brought about a truly Europe-wide internal market in electricity and gas, then let nobody be surprised if the concept of a European regulator is mooted and then actually brought to fruition – which we are not doing right now – along with the unbundling of property rights over the networks, which we are not doing now either. Both these options are still under consideration. It is now for the participants in the market to avoid the situation in which the legislature would have to take such action. In view of that, my hope is not only that the legislation will be adopted, but also that the participants in the market, the consumers and service-providers, will bring it to life in a tremendous way. Finally, I would like to thank all the rapporteurs and draftsmen, who have worked together in a quite remarkable way on these issues for years on end. Likewise, Madam Vice-President, I thank the Commission, you yourself and all its members. Many thanks to all my fellow workers, whom I congratulate on doing a difficult and first-rate job.

Political group: PPE-DE