12.10.2017   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 342/111

1.

reiterates its call for implementing more ambitious targets for energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy at EU level, which should be raised to 40 % by 2030;

2.

endorses the three core goals of the ‘Clean Energy For All Europeans’ package: (1) putting energy efficiency first; (2) achieving global leadership in renewable energies; and (3) providing a fair deal for consumers; regrets, however, that these goals are not fully achievable with the supporting regulations and non-legislative initiatives and that not enough emphasis has been placed on reducing the import dependency factor reflecting the share of all clean indigenous energy sources (renewable and conventional) in the energy mix;

3.

calls on the European Commission, in this connection, to make energy efficiency the top priority, to declare it an infrastructure priority and to make sure that public grants and financial instruments favouring energy efficiency are classed as capital costs, which would improve the security and reliability of the energy efficiency system. This would establish a clear policy safeguarding the budget and fostering competitiveness in Europe;

4.

welcomes the proposals to create a legal framework for Energy Union governance that would simplify and integrate the existing planning, reporting and monitoring obligations on energy and climate and calls on the Member States and the Commission to involve local and regional authorities in this political governance process;

5.

stresses and highlights the important role of local and regional authorities in strategic governance at the level nearest to consumers, in management of decentralised energy production, promotion of the right investment climate and in coupling energy and climate policies with measures taken in relation to housing, energy poverty, transport, economic development, and town and country planning or land use;

6.

draws attention to the key role of local and regional authorities in the implementation of energy policy, the identification of financing instruments for energy projects — especially those involving renewable energies — and in promoting sustainable energy models and best practices among consumers;

7.

warns that the achievement of energy and climate targets set at European and national level will be jeopardised if the leading role of local and regional authorities in the implementation of energy policy in the Energy Union is not officially recognised;

8.

points out that the process of drafting national energy and climate plans must be transparent and accountable so that local players, businesses and other stakeholders know what to expect from national governments and, in particular, how compliance with obligations is ensured and what steps could be taken if national plans proved insufficient to achieve the targets at EU level;

9.

welcomes the European Commission’s recognition that the transition to clean energy will be impossible without the involvement of many stakeholders from civil society and regional and local levels and therefore calls on Member States to properly involve regions and cities in the debate on the energy transition (and particularly on the integrated national energy and climate plans) so that the right response can be given to the needs of different sectors;

10.

notes, however, that — whatever the different constitutional provisions of individual EU Member States — the proposals on governance make no specific reference to the institutional role of local and regional authorities (to say nothing of other stakeholders), apart from the general provisions on public consultation in Article 10, which states that ‘the public [must be] given early and effective opportunities to participate in the preparation of draft plans’;

11.

suggests consideration be given to further reform of the EU rules on State aid in the energy sector to underpin the measures taken by towns and cities, in particular by devising specific guidelines for local action that seek to simplify the existing framework and by means of both specific exemption provisions for energy projects in the regeneration of local authority and social housing in order to tackle the problem of energy poverty. It should therefore be ensured that the resilience of cities and the energy transition are enshrined as priorities in the next framework — from 2020 onwards;

12.

calls on the European Commission and Member State governments to step up cooperation with local and regional stakeholders, especially their local and regional energy agencies, in shaping the future energy and climate plans at national level and in this way to shift from a policy in which only a few players are involved to one in which all are involved;

13.

notes, in this connection, the many successful projects involving the use of renewable energies that have been started and taken forward at local level in cooperation with SMEs, NGOs and civil society organisations and by means of investments by individuals in electricity and heat production from renewables;

14.

points out that a large number of other key players are active locally in the ambit of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, including small and medium-sized enterprises, NGOs and civil society organisations;

15.

stresses the need to also involve local players in supporting the national government in pursuing a number of forward-looking EFSI projects that help in meeting Europe’s climate and energy policy targets. The newly established European Investment Advisory Hub should provide a fast-track procedure to support cities that have committed themselves to developing projects with low CO2 emissions;

16.

calls, with reference to the European Investment Bank’s JASPERS and ELENA programmes, for the implementation of further targeted technical assistance programmes that are needed to help cities and regions secure investment for carrying out ambitious projects, including by encouraging the development of a large portfolio of investment projects and the bundling of small and highly dispersed low-carbon emission projects;

17.

points out that the governance of the EU Energy Union must aim for the ‘streamlining and integrating’ of planning in practice and that effective links to existing initiatives must be forged with regard to monitoring and reporting;

18.

stresses that effective coordination is needed between the national and the local and regional tiers through planning, an implementation procedure and reporting in the area of energy and climate policy. This would help to avoid needless red tape and cater to the needs of better regulation;

19.

points out that, with regard to climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, local and regional authorities are already heavily involved and many of them have already put together strategies, action plans and monitoring procedures, not least under the Covenant of Mayors initiative, which covers more than 5 679 action plans for sustainable urban development in the energy sector;

20.

stresses that national plans and goals must be effectively tied in with goals at local and regional level and based on realistic and coordinated inputs from individual regions and sectors;

21.

points out that participation is not just about consultation, but also an active role in initiating and designing specific measures;

22.

regrets that the current recommendations for Energy Union governance do not include a sufficiently clear multi-level approach and therefore calls for Member State governments to set up Energy Dialogue platforms in order to enlist all levels of government and administration and all relevant stakeholders in designing national climate plans, in their monitoring and reporting, as well as organising exchange between different national Energy Dialogues with the help of the European Commission to ensure consistency and address cross-border problems;

23.

points out that there are a lot of advantages to an effective multi-level governance: the public and business, too, are involved in carrying out climate change measures and so take more ownership of the process and increase the chances of success, because the more visible governance is, the greater the public’s sense of responsibility;

24.

points out that Article 11 of the proposal (on regional cooperation) relates only to cooperation between Member States rather than to cooperation between sub-national levels of governance within or between individual Member States; calls on the Member States and the European Commission to also ensure appropriate support for cooperation between sub-national authorities, in particular cross-border cooperation, with a view to coordinating activities to fulfil the integrated national climate and energy plans;

25.

calls on the European Commission to include a section on multi-level governance in the documentation it addresses to Member State governments with guidelines on reporting on national energy policy and its planning;

26.

again calls on the EU and the Member States to create legal frameworks that benefit both energy end-consumers and ‘prosumers’ and the other energy suppliers on the retail energy market; underlines also that decentralised and self-generation on the basis of renewable energies delivers numerous benefits to the energy system (reduced need for transmission infrastructure and maintenance, greater resilience and flexibility) and that these benefits should be reflected in a fair price for any surplus energy from such schemes being fed into the grid; encourages therefore Member States to develop or continue innovative pricing systems to address this issue;

27.

points out the need for specialist advice, delivered in the right way, in the appropriate form and accessible through the appropriate communication channel on the ground for the target group and covering both technical and financial and practical aspects of the introduction of technologies with low CO2 emissions;

28.

stresses that measures taken in energy management must enable consumers to exercise control over their own consumption so that they can actively participate in the market and benefit from effective and appropriate customer protection; this is particularly important in the fight against energy poverty; the CoR therefore calls for the development of a common definition of energy poverty at EU level and for a set of concrete policy proposals aimed at the most vulnerable consumers, protect them against unjustified disconnection, prioritise energy efficiency measures to their benefit and devise targeted information for them;

29.

welcomes the focus the Commission puts in its Communication on accelerating clean energy innovation (COM(2016) 763) on two crucial political priorities: the creation of a resilient Energy Union with a forward-looking climate policy and new boosts to jobs, growth and investment;

30.

calls for a business, innovation and investment-friendly environment and procedures achieved through targeted signals, strategies, standards and regulations and with the right support from financial instruments in which public funds are deployed to facilitate private investment (and support risk minimisation where necessary);

31.

reiterates how important it is to configure energy policy in tight synergy with the European Union’s research and innovation policy; stresses that innovation in the sphere of renewable forms of energy, sustainable mobility, updating of existing energy infrastructure, the building of smart power stations, carbon binding and energy storage must be further supported at local level; calls on the Commission, therefore, to ensure better support particularly for innovative projects in the outermost regions so these can be enlisted as genuine laboratories for the energy transition;

32.

believes that the development of partnerships between local authorities under the smart-city initiatives has a key role to play in innovation in the field of clean energy in integrating areas such as energy saving in urban transport, interregional transport strategies, collaboration in new storage technologies, and smart public buildings. Better synergies between European Structural and Investment Funds and the European Fund for Strategic Investments are of crucial importance for the implementation of cross-border sustainable energy projects;

33.

welcomes the focus being placed on Open Innovation and Open Science to give small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as civil society, the chance to further develop on the basis of new knowledge;

34.

highlights the fact that the direct or indirect support for the use of fossil fuels (as well as the support provided by some Member States) must be scrapped as soon as possible because it masks the actual costs of such fuels for society and the environment and keeps prices artificially low, thereby hindering innovation in clean energy;

35.

supports the proposed use of the legal instrument to expedite the development of innovative low-carbon technologies and their effective use. The transition to a low-carbon economy will require investment in smart heating and cooling systems and in increasing energy efficiency in industry, the construction sector and transport, as well as the co-financing of projects for investment in renewable energy;

36.

stresses that the governance of the Energy Union must create the framework conditions for achieving the goals, such as easier access to public-private partnerships in order to accelerate project implementation, reduce red tape, identify any obstacles to local and regional authorities and provide legal certainty and predictability for investors;

37.

calls for procurement to be used, as proposed, as an effective tool for creating a market for low carbon technologies.

38.

Considers that the proposed regulation does not raise concerns regarding its compliance with the principle of subsidiarity. However, it raises concerns regarding its compliance with the principle of proportionality as the suggested governance system is considered too complex, too detailed and to impose too tight reporting intervals. The CoR would have preferred to see the governance system introduced via a directive, instead of regulation, which would allow the proper involvement of regional authorities in federal countries.