Utmost hypocrisy emitted by EU’s energy regulation

The major breakthroughs in the hot sector of energy all over the Old Continent materialised on national level, and on many occasions despite the Brussels directives. For example the North Gas Corridor, supplying Germany with huge quantities of Russian gas and increasing the overall dependency of the European Union on Russian energy resources, was not wholeheartedly supported by Brussels. Or take the example of the latest discovery of gas in the east Mediterranean Sea south of Cyprus, which was initially not welcomed by the EU authorities, because it unleashed grave objection from Turkey. It was the strong will of Nicosia and the active and decisive support from Israel, the US and Brittain that made this discovery and exploration possible. Brussels embraced it only lately. The EU followed the same unclear stance some decades ago vis-à-vis the major discoveries and exploitation of the huge oil findings in North Sea, which remained an exclusive affair of Britain and Norway. This affair actually prompted the latter country not to join the European Union. As for the frictions between the well founded and funded South Gas Corridor project to transport more Russian natural gas to Europe on the one side, and on the other the vague Nabucco pipeline scheme to connect the Caspian and Middle East gas regions to the European consumer markets, it is not yet clear which one is to survive. The first is being supported by a number of south and central European countries, expecting tangible results, while Nabucco is only a scenario backed by Brussels, seemingly, only to counter the South Corridor. The truth is that whatever major guidelines in the sector of energy are agreed in Brussels, contain such diverging national interest, that the end compromise reached in EU institutions is deprived of any meaning. The energy regulation It was like that when the European Council and the European Parliament reached last this an informal agreement on the energy infrastructure regulation. In the face of it, this regulation “will help to expand and modernise EU’s energy infrastructures”, but in reality it does nothing else than to allow the use of more coal. From a certain point of view the prospect of using more locally available primary energy resources is right, if the overall restrictions on CO2 production are observed. But is it possible with coal? Obviously not! Conducting however long-term planning on such colossal dimensions, in predicting and guiding production and consumption of energy in the entire European Union, leaves huge margins to play with numbers and assumptions, so as to contain and hide the inclusion of every intended policy. That is why this directive is so “large” as to contain and hide all national discrepancies from the overall EU obligation, regarding the CO2 production. This European hypocrisy is even more contemptible because the CO2 restrictions on the EU are in reality self-imposed. As everybody knows global cooperation to contain world CO2 production collapsed in Copenhagen two years ago. After that, only the EU and its politicians, wanted to be seen as world champions in protecting the planet, by introducing self-imposed restrictions on CO2 production. It is exactly those targets the EU is now actually breaking, again showing the utmost hypocrisy. More information can be found in this address: http://www.consilium.europa.eu//uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/trans/133926.pdf