Open Europe comments on Daily Express Gas scare!

The following is from the daily Open Europe e-mail update on EU events of concern:

Comment: In addition to giving the EU new powers relating to security of energy supply, to be decided on by majority voting, the Lisbon Treaty would also create a new obligation for security of energy supply policy to be framed "in a spirit of solidarity between member states." The European Commission has in the past proposed measures which would increase member states' holdings of emergency oil stocks and hand control of those stocks to Brussels. The Government successfully opposed these plans in 2002 but they remain on the table. The EU treaties have never before contained any specific powers on energy policy. When it was first proposed that these powers should be created during the European Convention (the conference which drew up the original EU Constitution in 2003), the UK Government was strongly opposed and tried to get them deleted. The Government said at the time: "This provision is unnecessary as all aspects of energy policy are effectively covered elsewhere in the Treaty e.g. single market, environment. In addition, we have detailed concerns on the text, which we consider may have the unintended effect of changing the boundaries of EU competence and the types of measure which will be subject to unanimity."