Colin Donald
Business Editor, Sunday Herald
After the earthquake, the reckoning.
Following the “peasants revolt” across Europe, policy-makers are
calculating the cost of the infusion of populist and nationalist parties
into the corridors of Brussels, and wondering how much harder it will make
the task of stabilising the eurozone crisis, pressing on with reform, and
boosting the whole project’s legitimacy in the eyes of sceptical voters
across the continent.
For those who believe that the European Union’s main tasks are to promote
growth and jobs, grow the single market, boost research and development and
join up the EU energy markets, the fear is that the invasion of wrecking
parties of various shades from Spain, the UK, Greece and France presages
another prolonged spell of constitutional navel-gazing. The worst outcome
will be destablised confidence, and increased grass-roots indifference to
Brussels and the European project.
It remains to be seen whether the new nationalist MEPs will live down to
expectations that they will spend all their time in the bar, engage in
internecine fights, and generally not turn up to do their job.
In the meantime, there are serious Scottish interests at stake. Here, the
Sunday Herald looks at four areas of European competence that are of
special importance to Scotland and examines the prospects for progress
under the new European mandate that follows the election and the
appointment of a new European Commission president this summer.
ENERGY
For some observers, the best outcome for the UK when it comes to the doling
out of the 24 European Commission portfolios would be energy, which no UK
representative has ever previously held. According to one Brussels insider,
the outgoing commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, was “lacklustre to say the
least”. He was also pro-nuclear, and it is said he didn’t “get” the
renewables revolution pioneered by the Scottish Government and others.
Now, not least because of the antics of Russian president Vladimir Putin,
the energy portfolio is one of the most strategic – although any appointee
is unlikely to be more pro-Scottish renewables than Oettinger, especially
as wind energy hostility has swept into the European Parliament with Ukip’s
24 MEPs.
Renewables-rich Scotland has a big interest in driving EU action to support
development of technologies such as offshore wind, marine energy and carbon
capture. It also wants to advance the grand project of a North Sea
supergrid to lower power costs by allowing the region to share the most
efficient power sources, pool load variability and power station
unreliability, and allow wider use of renewable energy.
More than half the EU’s energy needs are covered by external suppliers: in
2012 almost 90%of oil, 66% of gas and 42% of solid fuels used in the EU
were imported at a cost of more than €1 billion a day. Scottish renewables
are not ready to fill the gap, but with more EU support, they could point
to the way ahead.
SNIP
1 Comment