The European Commission said it plans to pursue a resilient Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy in 2017. This is one of the Commission’s 21 key initiatives for 2017 outlined by the EU’s executive arm on January 2.

Europe needs to take responsibility for delivery on promises made, the Commission said. Implementation of the EU Energy Union Strategy, low emission travel and mobility will be among the Commission’s priorities for this year.

Last month, European Commission Vice President for Energy Union Maros Šefčovič told New Europe in an interview the clean energy package will focus on renewables and modern technologies. "We’re going for renewables, we’re going for clean energy and we’re really proposing very strict rules if it comes to the capacity mechanisms, including limits of 550 grams of CO2 per Megawatt hour, which means that even these capacity mechanisms cannot be used as a backdoor for subsidies for some kind of outdated polluting technology,” he said. "The three main goals are: how to put energy efficiency first, how to achieve the global industry with renewables and what we can do to provide a really fair deal for our consumers,” the Slovak commissioner said.

https://www.neweurope.eu/article/eu-commission-strives-resilient-energy-union/

(neweurope.eu , January 3, 2017 )