The European Union members were still divided over a plan to set
a mandatory target for increasing use of renewable energy across
the bloc on Tuesday, two days before an EU summit.
To promote renewable energy is high on the agenda as the EU
leaders are ready to kick off their two-day summit on Thursday,
which is focused on energy policy and climate change.
The European Commission made an ambitious proposal in January to
set a target for the EU to achieve a 20 percent share of renewables
in the bloc's energy mix by 2020. The EU executive arm had intended
to make the target legally binding on member states.
Ahead of the EU summit, which has the final saying in the issue,
the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso insisted on
Tuesday that the target must be mandatory.
"This target should be binding, for the success and credibility
of our policy," said Barroso, who is supported by Germany.
But one day earlier, EU foreign ministers failed again to agree
on the 20 percent mandatory target, leaving the problem to be
resolved during the summit.
It was reported that the main opposition came from France,
Poland, Finland, Luxembourg and Bulgaria with others also warning
against imposing unreachable goals on governments.
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France, whose electricity needs are mainly satisfied by nuclear
power, has insisted on the inclusion of nuclear energy into the
targets scheme of so-called "non-carbon" energy instead of
renewables.
The EU energy ministers were also unable to reach a consensus on
a mandatory target in their meeting last month.
(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2007)
