A 220-page document entitled “Commission Staff Working Document: In-depth study of European Energy Security” is hardly designed to be a best-seller. Few outside Brussels will read the European Commission paper in full, which is a pity because it is an excellent piece of work. It also provides the basis for a series of proposals contained in an accompanying document, which if accepted and carried through could create a common energy policy for the EU comparable in scale, scope and cost to the Common Agricultural Policy. Eurosceptics will scoff at this. In their view the EU is on the verge of disintegration, lacking in both leadership and, in the light of the elections to the European parliament last month, any semblance of mass support. They are mistaken on all counts. Noisy eurosceptic parties won less than 20 per cent of seats in the parliament. Pro-European parties won by a mile. Far from disintegrating, the European institutions in Brussels remain a driver of ever greater union. Energy policy is just the latest focus for that effort. That is why the paper published last week is so interesting.

Source: blogs.ft.com

Key highlights:”Different countries will make different contributions, but all will come within a framework driven by the twin objectives of security of supply and the reduction of emissions.””That dependence is a legacy of history, but as the paper makes clear it is time to match energy security across the whole of the EU to the current political realities.””There is a glaring omission in all this. There is almost no mention of costs or the impact on European competitiveness.”

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