Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 21 May 2015 - Strasbourg

ACER - Human resources for monitoring wholesale energy markets (debate)

  Jeppe Kofod, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Madam President, every single day more than 500 million Europeans rely on having electricity in their power circuits, heat in their radiators, and gas for their stoves and boilers. It is a thing we take for granted, and indeed rightfully so. When it comes to energy, it has to just work. But someday, Commissioner, it very well might not work. I need not tell you that maintaining, running and supervising the energy infrastructure of Europe is no small feat. That is exactly why we need a strong, active and engaged ACER that can supervise it all and tackle the problems faced by Europe as we move towards an Energy Union and a true internal energy market.

The remit, of course, is the most pressing issue at hand, but before us lies a long list of obstacles to be removed before we can achieve the Energy Union that Europe needs: real infrastructure bottlenecks between European countries prohibiting the free flow of energy across borders due to the lack of transmission capacity, as you know; and artificial energy bottlenecks, where available transmission capacity is intentionally under-utilised or blocked outright, fragmenting further the internal energy market. To combat this, we need ACER to just work, but without manpower it will not.

Commissioner, when will the Commission provide ACER with the necessary financial resources to handle its obligation on the remit? That is my first question. When will the Commission come forward with concrete and detailed information on how and when the mandate and powers of ACER will be expanded, and will the Commissioner guarantee that such a proposal would be accommodated by the much-needed increase for the ACER budget, keeping also in mind that new responsibilities must also come with additional resources?