Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me start with very warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Glante, for his excellent cooperation. It was clear to me from my first reading of the report that it would need more than one debate in this House, but I do believe that we in this House agree on what the directive is intended to do. Its objective is, quite simply, to give priority to the saving of energy and to its efficient use. I believe that our long debates have led us to a high degree of consensus on the subject. At the very outset, Mr Glante put forward some forty amendments, which formed the basis for excellent discussions. I have to say that he not only handled the technical aspects very well, but also – and this is most important – the human dimension, involving bringing people together and striving for compromises. We ended up with 240 amendments, which, of course, we all worked through together. We eventually succeeded in finding the compromise we sought. What is now before us is very much a consolidated version, one that I think we can all live with, and the fact that it has developed along the right lines is demonstrated by the way the Industry Committee voted. We have, of course, prepared minor amendments for this reading, but I think that the basic principle we hammered out together for sustainability in the area of energy supply will have very far-reaching effects. What was of primary importance for us was finding a harmonised system for the calculation method. This itself was not the focus of attention, as there were so many different options and possible approaches to it; what was, though, more important to us was finding a basis for the whole of Europe, enabling the harmonised system to be universally applicable, whether in the North/South sphere or elsewhere. We know that there are countries in Europe where it gets very hot, and others that need a lot of heat, some needing cooling down and others needing warming up, so that there are very different interests at play here. At this point, I would like to thank those who are called lobbyists, who have done truly outstanding work, teaching us a great deal about the options available. The final result has been that we have learned a very great deal from the many debates, discussions and evening events, when we often stayed for a very long time discussing these things. Our aim is of course a future increase in the share of cogenerated energy from 9% to 18%. It should be clear that what we are after is for the figure to be doubled. When it comes to working out the formulas, we would very much like the CEN Workshop to be involved, together with the Commission, and all parties involved to again get to grips with standardisation, so that, in the event of a second reading – which I expect we will have – there will be another variant to be debated. So we are, de facto, hiding behind the CEN Workshop as regards a final solution as to how we take this forward. It is my belief that, in principle, cogeneration can spark a completely new debate on the supply of electricity and energy, especially when we consider the micro-cogeneration plants. It is the very safety of the small circuit systems that makes them a very interesting concept for the future. We are all well aware from the renewable energy and the various central heating plants that we already have in the rural fabric and in small villages, that cogeneration has made its presence very much felt in these places, and that, moreover, the market of course functions in a completely different way. If, then, in future, we consider not only the large installations, which were our primary focus of attention here, but also the many small regional ones, perhaps even the domestic units that may one day be possible, we can accordingly achieve something on the market. In Wels, the city from which I come, they are planning a project called ‘EnergyLand’. In fact, Europe ought to be an ‘EnergyLand’. We are endeavouring to put research and development centre-stage in this ‘EnergyLand’ and, in the area of education and training, to make these new methods and new funding possibilities known to the wider public and, especially, to the business world. In future, of course, we should give closer attention to energy and to the infrastructure in the energy sector, for a secure energy supply and efficient energy should certainly be among the primary objectives of the European Union.

Political group: PPE-DE