National leaders from the EU's 27 countries on Friday signed up to a report from the current Polish presidency committing them to complete the EU's single market for electricity and gas by January 2014, conclusions from the European Council meeting in Brussels showed.
Leaders were meeting primarily to hammer out a new economic pact on the future of the eurozone but also discussed several energy issues including the single market and the European Commission's October proposals for an infrastructure package to support building priority energy links between EU countries.
"We...have important conclusions on energy, notably on the need for swift completion of our internal energy market and the development of common infrastructure, EC president Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters in Brussels as the summit ended.
"These are key growth and energy reforms that member states are working on and we hope they can also deliver them decisively," he said.
The council conclusions say a number of areas require urgent progress including "full and speedy implementation of internal market legislation by EU countries by agreed deadlines."
They also state that no EU state should remain isolated from EU gas and power grids by 2015, or see its energy security threatened because of an absence of good connections.
And they call for an early agreement on the recent infrastructure package and its proposal to introduce binding measures to boost energy efficiency, including an obligation on energy suppliers and distributors to work with customers to cut their demand by 1.5% a year up to 2020.
NUCLEAR SAFETY
Leaders also discussed nuclear safety and the stress tests that have been carried out on all nuclear power reactors following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March. The conclusions commit to final reports being delivered on the stress tests by June 2012.
They also reiterated "deepening concerns over the nature of Iran's nuclear program, as reflected in the latest IAEA report, and the failure of Iran to meet its international obligations."
The conclusions invite the EU Council to carry on work on extending the scope of existing restrictive measures imposed on Iran and potentially broadening existing sanctions, but they gave no specifics.
Leaders called on the EU Council to adopt these measures before the next leaders' summit, which is scheduled for March 1-2, 2012.
