WRITTEN QUESTION E-2924/03 by Salvador Garriga Polledo (PPE-DE) to the Commission. European Council to guarantee energy supplies.
Date: 2003-10-06
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: advisory committee (EU), electrical energy, energy grid, energy policy, energy supply, security of supply

C 78 E/190

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

27.3.2004

(2004/C 78 E/0196)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2924/03

by Salvador Garriga Polledo (PPE-DE) to the Commission

Subject: European Council to guarantee energy supplies

(6 October 2003)

Summer 2003 will be remembered, inter alia, for the number of electricity black-outs which left various
international communities deprived of the energy supplies, that public authorities should guarantee their
citizens.

The fact that one of those communities was London, the capital of the UK, has led analysts to wonder
whether the EU needs a European Consultative Council for guaranteeing energy supplies, in all forms, so
that the distress occasioned by this summer’s blackouts does not spread to other parts of the Community.

Does the Commission believe that it should set up a consultative council for secure energy supplies, with a
view to protecting the whole EU from black-outs?

Answer given by Mrs de Palacio on behalf of the Commission

(13 November 2003)

No electricity system can be 100 % immune from interruptions. Having said that, a repeat of the large
number of incidents during 2003 on a regular basis would be unacceptable to European citizens.

Generally, the Commission believes that it is the task of Member States to ensure the continuity of
electricity supplies. This applies both to generation adequacy (sufficient generation capacity to meet the
consumption at any time) and to network adequacy (sufficient transmission and distribution network
capacity to serve the loads at any time).

However, as the electricity transmission of the whole Europe is interconnected, there is a need for a close
co-operation between the system operators. To this end, the Union of Co-ordination of Transmission of
Electricity (UCTE) at the request of the ‘Florence’ Electricity Regulation Forum, has initiated the work on
the Operational Handbook which aims at binding security and reliability rules in the UCTE network.

This work serves mainly to consolidate existing agreements between system operators which have been in
place for a number of years. The Commission, European regulators, the transmission system operator
(TSOs) outside the UCTE area and other stakeholders have also participated in this work. The Regulation
on cross-border trade of electricity provides for the possibility to include, in the guidelines on congestion
management, common rules on minimum safety and operational standards for the use and operation of
the network. It is the intention of the Commission that the future guidelines will include basic rules of this
type in support of the development of the Handbook.

It is also considered important that the regulatory framework in place ensures adequate investments to the
electricity generation and transmission infrastructure in medium and long term. The Commission intends
to produce a Communication on this subject by the end of 2003, which will contain some specific
proposals on this subject.

(2004/C 78 E/0197)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2927/03

by Michl Ebner (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(6 October 2003)

Subject: Urgent need to expand voluntary fire services

Mediterranean countries have again been hit this summer by devastating forest and bush fires. Large
numbers of people have fallen victim to fires in Portugal and the south of France, which have been