A Community action plan on renewable sources of energy

In adopting the report by Mr Peter MOMBAUR (PPE, D), the European Parliament underlined the advantages of renewable sources of energy and stressed that 50% of the world's population still has no access to energy networks. Parliament was of the opinion that the EU should immediately adopt an action plan for the use of renewable energies and called on the Commission to present a proposal for concrete actions to be implemented by the EU and by the Member States, the aim being to increase the proportion of renewable sources of energy in the overall primary energy range to 15% by the year 2010. To achieve this the Community and the Member States must create the necessary political, legal and economic framework-conditions to make renewable energies competitive. Parliament also demanded: - that an audit be taken of how the decisions adopted at the Rio Summit have been applied, - that the Commission take stock of regional actions in the field of renewable energies, in order to reduce regional dependence with regard to external energy sources, - that it should ensure coordination between Community energy promotion programmes as well as coordination between these and actions at national and regional level, - that it implement a 'centralised' system for the collection and dissemination of all information relating to renewable sources of energy, including methods of financing, - that it should consolidate the activities employed by its Directorates General in this field and that it evaluate the results obtained to date with the actions of the EU in this area, in relation to the resources deployed, from an economic and ecological point of view. In conjunction with this, Parliament demanded that budget allocations for actions intended to promote renewable sources of energy be at least equal to those earmarked for promoting nuclear fusion, that is to say, at least ECU 840 million by 1998. Parliament called on the Commission to set out in its communication on renewable sources of energy what would be the impact of a European programme to be known as '100,000 homes', whereby the EU and the Member States would bear part of the costs of installing small photovoltaic devices on the roofs and frontages of private homes. It also demanded that the promotion of renewable sources of energy be undertaken in cooperation with third countries, and in particular with those bordering the Mediterranean, with the CEECs and with those countries eligible for aid under the TACIS programme. In order to promote the consumption of renewable sources of energy, Parliament thought it necessary that the external costs (environmental costs and those associated with the use of hazardous technologies) generated by the production of conventional energy should be incorporated in energy prices and that tax incentives should be provided. With this in mind Parliament called for: - strategies in support of renewable sources of energy to be developed by financial institutions, - guaranteed access to the power networks of independent producers of electricity which is based on renewable energies at competitive prices, - an analysis of the results of national and local schemes for paying decentralised producers who supply current to electricity grids, - European standards to be laid down in respect of negotiable assets for the utilization of renewable energies. Parliament also urged Member States to introduce legal measures for town and city planning, the protection of the landscape, the regulation of the activities of architects and engineers (including their educational qualifications and training) and the improved supply of relevant information to the public. Finally, it called on the Commission to identify the main obstacles to the utilization of renewable energies, to promote the exploitation of the biomass for energy production and to examine the effect which an annual price discount, designed to reward the users of this type of energy source, would have on the promotion of renewable energies. �