The European Council has agreed on a timeframe and key principles for the energy and climate change package

With today's adoption of the European Council conclusions, the EU leaders confirmed commitments in three important areas and gave the EU adequate tools to meet the challenges currently facing the EU-27.

"We have put in motion a modern and concrete new three-year cycle of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. We have adopted an ambitious timeframe and confirmed key principles for the adoption of the energy and climate change package. We have addressed current concerns regarding the stability of the financial markets" said the Slovenian Prime Minister and President of the European Council Janez Janša at the end of the European Council meeting.

Adoption of timeframe and principles for the energy and climate change package

In Prime Minister Janša's view, the most important outcome of this European Council is the adoption of a timeframe and key principles for the adoption of the energy and climate change package.

"The Slovenian Presidency has been working hard on this subject since January and I am pleased to confirm that we have made a commitment to reach an agreement on the entire package by the end of this year. In this respect, constructive cooperation between all EU institutions will now be crucial to ensure that the package is adopted by spring 2009," European Council President Janez Janša said.

In preparation for the discussion of the package in the coming months, the EU leaders today also agreed on key principles regarding the adoption of the package:

• Economic efficiency and cost-effectiveness: the measures should also contribute to other economic and social goals that the EU has set within the framework of the Lisbon Strategy.
• Fairness and solidarity in the distribution of efforts between Member States: the distribution of efforts should take into account the different starting points of each Member State as well as their individual capabilities, and respect the need for sustainable economic growth.
• Transparency: the debate on the package should be carried out transparently at EU level in order to boost mutual trust and reinforce credibility at international level.

"In the discussion of key principles for the adoption of the package, we also discussed the emissions cap at EU level. The present system based on national emissions caps does not provide sufficient assurance that the targets we set for emissions reductions in March 2007 will in fact be achieved. This is why we have agreed today on the maximum level of emissions at EU level, the so-called EU ETS cap," Prime Minister Janez Janša said.

The EU leaders also discussed the issue of carbon leakage and the concerns that some industry sectors might choose to move to third countries on account of tougher environmental standards in the EU. European Council President Janes Janša said that "the solution for this will be a timely global post-2012 agreement on climate change that will ensure the same environmental standards for everyone. But we know that our industries, especially those in energy-intensive fields, expect a predictable playing field as quickly as possible, which is why special emphasis will be placed on this in the debate on the ETS directive."