Mr President, what is the purpose of a directive on renewable forms of energy, or an own-initiative report from Parliament? I think we must place this report, and also the directive which is in the pipeline, in the context of the European Union’s energy policy with its three objectives of competitive pricing, security of supply and environmental protection. Since 29 February 2000, we have had a common electricity market but, regrettably, still with considerable distortions of competition which still, unfortunately, work to the disadvantage of both renewable energy cogeneration and energy management and the forms of energy of the future. The reasons for this are energy prices which do not incorporate the external costs, with the sizeable subsidies which are still available to the nuclear sector as well as the fossil-fuel sector. The directive which is currently being prepared should, in my opinion, have two objectives. Firstly, the current imperfect market must be adjusted as necessary in order to protect the still tender shoots of the plant which is renewable energy, and also to lay the foundations for renewable energies so that they head in the direction that they need to before the year 2030 or 2040, when they must be capable of providing the greater part of the European Community energy mix. We have many reasons to move in this direction. Firstly, the protection of the environment, but also the creation of jobs. We have studies, backed up with figures, to show that renewable energies create more jobs than conventional forms of energy. We know that we must make Europe ready for a world renewable energy market and there are also geostrategic advantages to our reducing our dependence on regions which are often in crisis. What must the cornerstones of this forthcoming directive be? It must, in the first place, be based on the Treaty articles relating to both the internal market and the environment. It must have ambitious, clearly defined objectives at European level in the order of those given in the Commission White Paper, i.e. 12% for energy and 23% for electricity. After setting these objectives at the European level, there must be ‘burden sharing’ negotiations between the Commission and the Member States in order for reciprocal agreement to be reached on the specific national objectives which, when added together, will combine to form the European objective. As regards the instruments to be implemented, my report advocates subsidiarity. I believe it is too early to pass judgement on the various instruments that can be classified. On the one hand, there are the fixed-price systems which have launched the renewable energy industry in Europe. On the other hand, there are the trading systems which have just been created in the Netherlands and Denmark, where there are still many administrative and technical problems to resolve. We therefore propose that the Commission makes an assessment of the various instruments in 2005, and that, until that date, subsidiarity should be maintained and the Commission should refrain from regulating subsidies to the renewable sector. I would argue that it is pointless to make cuts in subsidies to the renewable sector when there are much larger subsidies going to the nuclear and fossil-fuel sectors. There is one last point which I wish to put forward, namely the need for a system for labelling and providing information on all forms of electricity. In an internal market, the consumer should be informed, and this information should be provided for every form of energy, not just green electricity. I would like to thank all the people who contributed to this report, which is the result of a real team effort, and I await their comments with interest.

Political group: Verts-ALE