Uitvoering Europees investeringsplan in energie waarschijnlijk binnen twee jaar (en)

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS – An agreement on the deployment of €5 billion in EU funds for new energy and broadband projects, over which ministers have been haggling since January, was set to be reached on Thursday night under the provision that no money could be spent after 2010.

Earlier on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel i said she would not approve the €5 billion recovery plan unless the energy projects listed were to begin implementation sometime in 2009 or 2010.

"Otherwise, it wouldn't really be a recovery plan for the current economic crisis," she said at a meeting of centre-right European leaders.

EU premiers and presidents were to discuss the matter over dinner, with the most likely solution predicted to be a sunset clause under which monies "up to €5 billion" would be spent over the 2009-2010 period - but not afterwards, an EU source told this website.

Germany was also trying to win a deal for national telco giant Deutsche Telekom for the broadband projects within the spending plan. According to Financial Times Deutschland, Ms Merkel was insisting that the EU commission loosen regulations so that the German former monopoly could acquire market access without negotiating prices with its competitors.

Berlin has also had its way over the question of the source of funds for the spending plan, refusing the initial EU commission proposal of using monies left unspent by the end of 2008.

Nabucco on the list

Additionally, EU leaders were likely to keep the name of the Nabucco gas pipeline on the list of projects. In a previous draft list of projects, the pipeline had on Monday been re-christened under the broader term "Southern corridor", whihc would have allowed a tranche of €200 million to be split between Nabucco and a Turkey-Greece-Italy gas pipeline.

"I reassure you that the term 'Nabucco' will be found in the final summit declaration," Romanian President Traian Basescu told a press conference on Thursday.

Romania, Austria, Poland and Slovakia insisted that the Nabucco project be mentioned as such on the projects list.

Germany opposed the inclusion of Nabucco on the list, arguing that the project was only going to kick off in 2011. "We also don't see the rationale of throwing public money at a completely commercial project," a diplomatic source told EUobserver, wondering what impact €200 million would have on a €8 billion project.

The EU commission initially proposed €250 million for Nabucco, not in direct funding, but employing a financial mechanism via the European Investment Bank so as to secure better funding for the project.

"We are not worried if Nabucco is not on the list, but it would be an important political signal," Neil McMillan from RWE, a German company that involved in the Nabucco project, told EUobserver on Wednesday on the margins of an EU energy policy conference.