By Matt Williams - 25th September 2007
STRASBOURG: MEPs have called on EU capitals to adopt a common foreign policy for energy.
The creation of a high officer for foreign energy policy is a featured proposal in an own-iniative report adopted by a large majority on Wednesday and written by Polish centre-right MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, who chairs the foreign affairs committee.
Entitled "Towards a common European foreign policy on energy", the report stresses the need for a collective approach to securing future European energy supplies.
“The idea is that the EU sings with one voice on these issues,” he said.
“The final aim, which is gas in the kitchens and oil in the cars, requires a common foreign energy policy”, Saryusz-Wolski, told journalists at a press conference.
“This is a political signal that we are sending out to the commission and council.”
“Our supreme aim in the institutions should be to secure safe energy for our citizens’ stability,” he added.
Saryusz-Wolski stressed that an assertive EU energy policy was crucial.
“At the moment, energy is an instrument, a weapon of foreign policy…because of this dependence on gas and oil”, he added.
Parliament’s vote follows MEPs backing on Tuesday of the report by Danish Socialist Britta Thomsen, which calls for a fifth of EU energy to be from renewable sources by 2020.
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