OREANDA-NEWS. March 17, 2008. At the European Council that ended, climate and energy policy were one of the main topics. The heads of the governments of the Member States of the European Union agreed on the main principles for shaping the climate and energy policy of the Union, which proceed from the goal of ensuring energy security and promoting an environment-friendly economy in Europe.

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, who attended the summit, expressed his satisfaction with the developments in the European Union energy policy, stressing the importance of addressing the energy issues uniformly.

“Estonia’s priority is the energy security of the European Union,” Ansip said. “The establishment of the domestic energy market and gradual transition to low carbon economy increase both the competitiveness of the European Union economy as well as energy security. For Europe, it is important to decrease its energy dependency on third countries.

The European Council decided, based on the proposal by Estonia, that the European Commission must take into account the situation and needs of small and isolated energy markets when shaping further measures.

“Estonia is interested in preventing carbon leakage, that is, the transfer of high emission energy production to third countries, and the subjecting of electricity imports to clear rules,” said Ansip.

Ansip stressed that unfair competition must not be allowed to be created. In a situation where the energy producers of the European Union must purchase their entire carbon dioxide quota from auctions and third country producers do not have such obligation, the production of the latter is clearly more competitive, according to Ansip.

“Thus, we need to keep working towards achieving an international agreement that would stipulate uniform rules for all,” said Ansip.

Among other things, Ansip regarded it very important that the decisions of the Council consider the opportunity according to which the Estonian electricity producers could, for ensuring energy security and competitiveness, receive free quotas similarly to energy-intensive industrial enterprises.

On the proposal of Estonia, the part concerning clean carbon storage was changed in the text of Council conclusions. The agreement entered into takes into account the favourable conditions of Estonia for the chemical storage of carbon dioxide by using carbon dioxide neutralised oil shale ash for filling oil shale quarries and mines. This allows for the development of suitable technology in Estonia via the scientific programmes of the European Union.