Energy Council

Chris Huhne Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)]

I will be attending the extraordinary Energy Council on 21 March, which has been called by the Hungarian presidency in order to take stock of the events in north Africa and Japan and to discuss their effect on energy markets. The Council will focus on two discussion points:

To review the state of play in the energy sectors of the countries linked to these international developments as well as their consequences on energy markets (e.g. supply from north Africa, evolution of demand in Japan);

To exchange views on the response, already underway or to be undertaken, at EU (e.g. crisis information and monitoring, various gas and oil co-ordination mechanisms) and member states’ level (e.g. national plans, redeployment of national supplies, review of safety measures), over various time horizons (from short-term to medium/long-term).

I intend to emphasise that member states and the Commission need carefully to establish what lessons can be learned from Japan to see how they can be applied in the EU. The Government take the incident in Japan extremely seriously and I have already called on the Chief Nuclear Inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, for a thorough report on the implications of the situation in Japan and the lessons to be learned. I will also emphasise that the EU should wait until the facts of the Japanese accident are clearer before taking any decisions about changes to the safety framework.

As regards the events in north Africa, we will continue to emphasise the importance of close engagement with other states in the IEA and the IEF to ensure that proper consideration is given to any measure that would calm the market.