Findings of public consultation on shale gas

10.7.2013

Question for written answer E-008299-13
to the Commission
Rule 117
Konrad Szymański (ECR)

The Commission held a public consultation on unconventional fossil fuels, including shale gas, between 20 December 2012 and 23 March 2013. There were 22 875 respondents, around half (11 713) of whom were Polish.

There were very large disparities between the numbers of responses sent in from the Member States (ranging from a low of 1, from Latvia, to a high of 11 714, from Poland). Eighty-five per cent of the responses came from only four Member States, namely Poland, France, Romania and Spain, which, taken together, account for some 34% of the EU’s overall population.

1. Does the Commission intend to draw any conclusions for the EU as a whole from the results of this consultation?

2. Does it intend to rerun the consultation process, possibly on a broader basis this time?

3. On the basis of the results of the initial consultation, does it intend to draw any conclusions as to what the general public in countries such as Latvia (one response), Greece (three responses) and Estonia (four responses) thinks of shale gas?

4. Will it set the number of responses from each Member State against the size of its population? For instance, will it view the single response received from Latvia as representative of the opinions of the Latvian people as a whole?

5. Does the fact that such a large proportion of the responses came from a single Member State, Poland, not tend to indicate that this is a matter that should be dealt with by the Member States, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle?

OJ C 65 E, 05/03/2014