WRITTEN QUESTION E-2705/03 by Raffaele Costa (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Renewable energies.
Date: 2003-09-11
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU aid, EU financing, EU programme, Italy, project management, renewable energy

C 78 E/156

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

27.3.2004

The Union is undoubtedly a market for some of the illegally harvested timber traded from these regions.
However, in the case of South-east Asia, East Asian countries such as China and Japan constitute the main
market for exports of tropical timber. In the Amazon basin most of the timber is consumed internally (cid:1)
one widely quoted estimate being that 80 to 90 % of Brazilian timber is consumed within Brazil. Generally
speaking, the extent to which illegal logging accounts for deforestation is difficult to separate from other
factors such as agricultural expansion and infrastructure development.

law,

logging not only on the environment, but also in undermining good
Aware of the impact of illegal
governance and the rule of
the Commission adopted a Communication entitled ‘Forest Law
Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) -Proposal for an EU Action Plan’ on 21 May 2003 (1). The
Action Plan describes a series of proposed measures to reduce illegal logging in affected countries and to
exclude illegally harvested timber from the Union. These include a proposal for voluntary, but binding
agreements to be made with interested countries, allowing for the identification of legally harvested timber,
including legislation allowing for the exclusion of timber from these countries not identified as being legal
under such agreements. At the time of writing, the Commission is awaiting the views of the Council and
the Parliament on the FLEGT Communication before it can take any substantial further steps in pursuit of
these proposals.

(1) COM(2003) 251 final.

(2004/C 78 E/0160)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2705/03

by Raffaele Costa (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(11 September 2003)

Subject: Renewable energies

The Altener Programme for research, promotion and funding at national level of projects dedicated to the
development of renewable energies was allocated EUR 74 million in funding. Can the Commission indicate
what projects were presented by Italy, which of these received financial support and of how much, and
what results were achieved?

Answer given by Mrs de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(16 October 2003)

The period for the funding referred to in the Honourable Member’s question is the period of the Altener II
programme from 1998 to 2002. In response, a table is sent direct to the Honourable Member and to
Parliament’s Secretariat. The table is giving details of all proposals which were submitted by proposers
from Italy to the Altener programme for co-financing in the last two years of the Altener II programme
(2001 and 2002). For these two years, this table contains details of those proposals for which funding was
not awarded following evaluation and selection, and of those which were accepted for Community
support. For those proposals which were accepted for support, the table also contains the amount of
Community support to the Italian co-ordination and the location (home town) of the Italian co-ordinator
(plus respective details of any Italian partner). For the first three years of the Altener II programme (1998-
2000), the table contains only those projects with Italian coordinators which received support by the
Community as for this period data regarding proposals that have not been selected are not available.

Every Altener project has to be concluded with a final report which must be approved by the Commission
before final payments are made. These reports normally contain an executive summary together with
details of the actions undertaken during the project and the final outcome of the work. A copy of the
executive summary and/or the final report
for any specific project will be made available to the
Honourable Member on request.

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Official Journal of the European Union

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The Honourable Member may also be interested to read the evaluation of the management and of the
results of both successive Altener programmes for the years 1996-2000 (‘Evaluation of the Altener
Programme (1996-2000): Final report for the Directorate General Energy & Transport of the Commission’),
which was commissioned from external experts in the year 2000. This report does of course not
distinguish between projects with Italian coordinators and other coordinators. However, in case of interest
a copy of this Altener programme evaluation can also be provided on request.

(2004/C 78 E/0161)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2708/03

by Raffaele Costa (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(11 September 2003)

Subject: City-Res Network project

The aims of the City-Res Network project included the exchange of information and good practices and
raising awareness with regard to the use of alternative energies in the major cities of the European Union.
It received Community funding of EUR 200 000 and ended in 2000. Could the Commission indicate what
the results of this project were, which European cities were involved, what events were organised and how
the funds were spent?

Answer given by Mrs de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(23 October 2003)

The City-Res project referred to by the Honourable Member and co-financed under the Altener II
programme for an amount of EUR 200 000 (1997 budget) as he mentions, started in 1998 and ended in
2000. It aimed at setting up a Union-wide network for promotion of renewable energy applications in
urban areas, and bringing both existing members of the association ‘Energie-Cités’, and further cities, on
board (1).

The tasks proposed and subsequently fulfilled were:

(cid:1) in particular monitoring of Altener I (1993-1997) and II (1998-2002) municipal projects in general,

(cid:1) setting up a monitoring centre for existing initiatives,

(cid:1) providing a dissemination service on the Altener programme targeted principally at municipal

officials,

(cid:1) creation and ongoing co-ordination of an experience exchange network,

(cid:1) the organisation of a relevant event (seminar in the spring of 2000 in Verona).

As provided in the work programme, 50 case studies within the theme of the project on cities had been
completed by March 2000, and the CD-ROM containing them distributed at the Verona meeting, and also
made available on the internet. A successor project, a brief description of which follows, resulted in an
updated and greatly expanded version of this CD-ROM, containing 105 Best-Practice case studies in Union
cities. The Commission is sending it direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat.

This follow-up project, also co-ordinated by Energie-Cités (www.energie-cites.org) took the form of a larger
‘cluster’ of three distinct projects, with a total cost of EUR 1,13 million, with 50 % co-financing again from
the Altener programme (Ref. B4.1030/C/00-006). The eighteen-month project ended in September 2002.