Common European Energy Policy
Europe needs an energy policy that enables it to meet the environmental objectives agreed internationally by the Union in an economic manner. Alternatively expressed, the task is to agree on economic policy, which turns environmental objectives into a realisable energy policy.
Added to this is the necessity of devising an energy policy which limits, and preferably eliminates, the risks to the security of supply. It is salutary to recall that two of the three founding Treaties of the EU – the Coal and Steel Community and Euratom – dealt with energy. Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, was himself preoccupied with the unacceptable geopolitical consequences of Europe’s dependence on imported energy. It is even more salutary to note that Europe’s dependence on imported energy has risen from 20% in Monnet’s time to its present level of 50% and is forecast to reach 70% by 2025.
At that point, Europe will be caught in an ‘energy crunch’. On the one hand, oil production will have peaked, or will certainly be on the verge of peaking. Even the most optimistic forecasts of the International Energy Agency agree on this point. On the other hand, both Chinese and Indian demand for oil and gas will have increased by a factor of six to eight times their present levels.
At that point it is inevitable that with dwindling supplies and ferocious global competition for resources between the US, China and India, the European Union will be marginalized unless the Member States start to act in concert in the world energy market. The costs of an uncoordinated approach amongst European States would, in these circumstances, be truly damaging in both economic and societal terms.
There is reason to believe that the Member States will take the step of creating a common policy in primary energy sources. The scale of ambition would be no greater than that of creating a common currency with a common monetary policy and a supranational central bank. Steps in this direction will probably be accelerated by the recognition that the alternative to pooling sovereignty and resources is collective economic decline.
It is inevitable that a common external energy policy should be complemented by an internal market in electricity and by common standards in energy efficiency, as well as common measures to develop bio-fuels so as to bring transport into unison with power generation and building standards.
The European Union will either have a holistic energy policy a quarter of a century from now or it will have slid into inevitable and irreversible decline. The history of the Union gives hope that the path chosen will be that of common action based on the pooling of sovereignty in accordance with the Treaties.
It is with that expectation that the concept of a European Offshore Supergrid is offered for consideration by policy-makers throughout the Union.
