BRATISLAVA/BRUSSELS, February 4, (WEBNOVINY) – European leaders concluded at the EU Energy Summit on Friday that no member state should remain isolated from the European gas and electricity networks after 2015 or see its energy security jeopardized by lack of the appropriate connections. Brussels also tackled energy security and single energy market. Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said on this occasion that Slovakia’s priorities in this area was the north-south energy corridor. EU leaders also threw their weight behind the ambitious target of establishing a functional common gas and power market by 2014.
“We are convinced that projects, such as network interconnection in CEE, represent a real contribution to the single market and should be finalized as soon as possible. Along with improving regulation, they are the right track to the single market. It has to be built in a bottom-up method but without investments in functioning interstate networks it will be just a theoretical concept,” Radicova noted. Market players are expected to ensure most of the investments whereby EU member states are to provide appropriate regulatory and investment environment. Some key projects to increase security of supplies may not be sufficiently attractive; therefore they may necessitate support from public funds. The Slovak prime minister mentioned the interconnection of gas pipeline systems between Slovakia and Hungary as an example of such scenario.
By late June 2011, the EC is to inform of the scale of potential investments and propose ways to ensure coverage of financial costs or remove potential obstacles. In line with the EU summit conclusions, Europe has to diversify energy routes as well as sources. The EC has calculated that an integrated energy market could create 5 million jobs by 2020, informed the press department at the Office of the Slovak Cabinet. Thanks to the free choice of a supplier, each consumer could save 100 euro on energy bills annually.
SITA
