The European Commission does not intend to draft regulations which would restrict the shale gas exploration.

 

“I do not believe that we need the new European standards, in particular, with respect to the shale gas,” said Gunther Oettinger, the Commissioner for Energy, to the journalists during the press conference in Cracow. In his opinion, the existing national and community regulations are sufficient. The declaration of the EU Commissioner comes up during particular time: a discussion which is taking place at the European Parliament about whether the shale gas exploration process, in particular the fracturing operations, are safe to the environment and whether the EU law should restrict them. For Poland, which may have the largest deposits of the shale gas in Europe, moving from the test production phase to the extraction on a large scale is of great importance. The Polish government harshly criticises the ideas of restricting shale explorations. Since it hopes that the production will enable at least partial independence from the import of expensive gas from Russia (Gazprom supplies two thirds of the required product to Poland). Commissioner Oettinger believes that the EU member states “demonstrate great vigilance because of the existing national and European regulations” which apply to the first exploratory projects. His reply means that the European Commission will not draft any regulations in the nearest future which could block the works. Last Friday, the similar opinion was presented by the EU Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard. In her opinion, at such an early stage of the works one cannot reject certain technologies. Gunther Oettinger participated yesterday in international conference on the possibility of creating competitive and integrated market in the EU. He assured that this is one of the European Commission’s priorities. In a few weeks, Brussels will present a package of laws enabling faster implementation of the necessary investments. In the Commissioner’s opinion it is possible to partially cover costs of such projects from the EU budget. Energy ministers and heads of the market regulatory bodies from few EU countries came to Cracow.

 

 

 

Source: Rzeczpospolita B, page no.: 6, 2011-10-11, by: Agnieszka Łakoma