Aankondiging Energieraad (en)

The Energy Council will be held on Monday 3 December, in Brussels. It will be a morning session, starting at 10h00 (closing time, at 13h30 at the latest). The agenda will have 4 main points

• 1. 

  The first and main item concerns the presentation from the Presidency of its Vision paper on Energy Technologies, which will be followed by the presentation from the Commission of the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan, adopted by the Commission on 22 November last. ( IP/07/1750 ). The Energy Technology plan is considered to be a key element for the realisation of the Energy Policy objective. These two presentations will leave the ground to the Ministers to hold a policy debate.

The debate will based on three main topics:

• - 

  Under the heading "1. The need to accelerate technological change", the proposed questions are: What are the key barriers to accelerate the development of clean and efficient energy technologies and which solutions are available at EU level to overcome them? In this context, what could be the role of market incentives and measures to create demand pull? How can we engage the private sector (e.g. through public-private partnerships)?
• - 

  Under the heading "2. R&D Investment", the proposed questions are: How can the EU and Member States, in a sustained way, achieve the appropriate scale and maximise the effectiveness of the resources and efforts (financial and human) dedicated to energy technology?
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  Under the heading "3. Governance and International Cooperation", the proposed questions are: How could the European Union define which areas of energy research, and which types of energy demonstration projects are most suited to EU cooperation, including with third countries, and how can this cooperation work in practice?

No Council Conclusions are foreseen. At the end of the policy debate the Presidency intends to draw Presidency Conclusions.

• 2. 

  The second item concerns the presentation from the Commission of the different proposals of the 3 rd Internal Energy Market, adopted on 19 September last. Information on the package could be found here . Commissioner Piebalgs has recently stated the urgency of the measures for the interest of the European citizen ( IP/07/1758 ) The Presidency will then call the Ministers to adopt the progress report. No debate is foreseen even though a certain number of Ministers might take the floor.

• 3. 

  The third item is the usual information point from the Presidency / Commission on the important events and actions under the international relations in the field of energy. In concrete, Ministers will be informed about the relations between EU-Brazil, EU-Africa, including the EU-Africa Energy Partnership, EU-Russia relations, Energy Community, the International Platform on Energy Efficiency, and any other initiatives.

There have been a number of developments in these areas, particularly the EU-Brazil Summit, the EU-Africa-Middle East conference on 1 November last in Sharm El Sheikh ( IP/07/1633 ), the EU-Russia Summit in Maphra IP/07/1603 ), and the Energy Dialogue meeting on 16 October, the Energy Community Ministerial meeting in Montenegro in June 2007 as well as the Energy Community Social conference and Investments conference.

• 4. 

  Last but not least, the Presidency will invite the Commission to provide information (an update) on the Nabucco Project. On this issue there have been also important developments like the conference of Nabucco in Budapest ( IP/07/1338 ) ( SPEECH/07/531 ), the nomination of a Coordinator for the project ( IP/07/1317 ) in the person of Jozias van Aartsen.