Mr. Günther Oettinger:

Chairman, Members of Parliament and ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to join you today. This committee has done much to put energy on the political map, to ensure that Ireland plays its part in European energy developments and to raise awareness among colleagues. My visit to Ireland today is a truly enriching experience. This country plays such an important part in Europe's history, in particular as it will hold the EU-Presidency during the first semester next year and no doubt the Presidency will mean that the Government is involved in that function. If the members look to the Lisbon treaty, they will note that we have to increasingly interconnect the Commission's work and the work of all our European institutions with that of the national parliaments. Perhaps energy is one of the main sectors where we need a perfect partnership between member states energy policies, and energy policy on a European level.

The energy sector is a long-term one which needs public private partnership, and it is not only a question of politics or markets but of both. The first item on our agenda is investments, the second is infrastructure and the third is looking beyond 2020 at what is the long-term legal framework in the Internal Market. As members will know, the European Union has two fundamentals - the first is peace and freedom and the second is the Internal Market, an open market for products, wares, goods and services, a market for everybody, for all employees, without protection or subsidisation, namely, a level playing field.

Energy includes the oil sector, its work and functions and also the coal sector, but electricity and gas are young latecomers to our European Union Internal Market. We have to conclude the Internal Market and speak about what is our framework for investments beyond 2020. There is a lack of investments. Today was a good day for this country, the UK and for Europe as a whole. The first east-west interconnnector is a huge investment. It is high technology and it is a bridge to the Internal Market in practice. However, we do not have enough investments in areas ranging from research and development to production, transport infrastructure, storage, technologies and capacities to energy efficiency. We need more investment and investment means mainly private investments, and perhaps additional public investments from member states' budgets and from the European Union budget, but investments need long-term clarity and long-term planning security. Nobody invests millions or billions if there is no business case for long-term investment. We need a smart common partnership in energy to develop between members states and the European Union to achieve a confident level for private investments.

What are our instruments in this respect? What is our legal competence on a European Union level? First, it is the Lisbon treaty. In this treaty there is an article to Europeanise, as it were, energy regulation, although there is one exemption. The energy mix, namely the mix for electricity, is up to member states. We have 14 member states using nuclear power and 13 member states avoiding nuclear power. We have member states using coal for 90% of their electricity production while others have come down to zero in that respect. We have member states which are pushing renewables while others are more defensive. I was in the Baltic states in recent days and gas is dominant in those states while in other member states gas plays a smaller role.

The Lisbon treaty, beyond technology and the energy mix, provides competence to Europeanise, as it were, energy policy. Our 20-20-20 targets, as members will know, include a 20% reductions in C02 emissions, 20% more energy efficiency and having 20% renewables in our European energy mix. In these years we have to control what happens, or in close partnerships our member states can give some advice and some subsidisation, and we are on line to reach these three targets which will have to be realised.

Our next instrument is the Internal Market. The Commission has to be the Internal Market police to observe if anything is working against the operating of the Internal Market rules.

The Internal Market means competition, transparency, a level playing field and openness for investors in a market of 500 million consumers and without any internal border. The interconnector is a necessary piece of infrastructure to develop market goods in the Irish market, the UK market and the European market.

If one compares other transport infrastructure, for decades and more recently we developed highways, railways, open airspace with hubs and regional airports, and container shipping to transport products. We have a digital agenda for information, navigation and communication. If one compares these other transport technologies, in terms of quality and capacity, to our existing infrastructure for gas and power, it is as though we are living on the borders of the 19th century. There is no electricity interconnector between Spain and France. In my home region of south-west Germany, in terms of connections to France, there are 60 bridges over the River Rhine for cars, trucks and goods but no bridge for electricity. Lithuania has just one gas pipeline coming from Russia. It is an isolated island that depends on Russian gas because there is no alternative. It is necessary to diversify routes and supplies and to develop new interconnectors between member states. That is key for this political generation.

We have ENTSO-E and ENTSO-G, the European association of our TSOs. They are working closely with the Commission to develop bigger regional visions. One region consists of Ireland, the UK, the North Sea, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The interconnector is just a start. Perhaps it will need more capacity at the end of the day. We could also look to having offshore gas pipelines and interconnectors from the UK to the Netherlands or a North Sea ring interconnecting Denmark, Germany and the UK. There is much to do because without the newest standard of infrastructure there is no competition, there is no solidarity when needed, there is not good security of supply and we cannot invest in the best locations for renewables. As an example, in the southern part of Germany there are many investments in onshore wind, but it is not really a windy region. In Bavaria one has 1,800 hours a year of wind to power. In a year there are 8,765 hours. If I look offshore and onshore on Ireland's western border I see up to 4,000 hours of wind to power. If we had interconnectors, a level playing field and a functioning internal market, investors would invest in this country and not in the southern part of Germany. It is the same with solar energy and the southern part of Europe.

We are now developing bigger European regions for our mid-term strategies for infrastructure. Our infrastructure package for a faster process to get permits for pipelines and grids is currently under way in the European Parliament. Our position is that if one needs a super-grid or pipeline, between three and four years is enough to prove all arguments and offer a transparent process to citizens to decide which concrete pipeline is preferred. It is not good to spend ten or more years discussing the alternatives. It is not good for nature, citizens, or industry, and it is not helpful in finding a better solution.

In addition, in the Commission's proposal for the next multi-annual financial framework, for the budget period starting in 2014 and ending in 2020, we have our programme to connect Europe's facilities. It is about co-financing projects of common European interest. As members are aware, the European Council gave an order to avoid isolating Ireland before the end of-----