The draft report by Rapporteur Claude Turmes on the EU Directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources largely meets the European photovoltaic industry expectations, in particular with regard to the safeguarding of successful national support schemes (such as feed-in tariffs).

On the occasion of the conference “Improving Access to Basic Financial Services” organised yesterday by the European Commission (EC) and the publication of the EC report “Financial Services Provision and Prevention of Financial Exclusion”, the ESBG believes that the fight against financial exclusion has to be dealt with at the national level and stresses the importance of voluntary initiatives in this field.

EuroACE welcomes the European Commission's announcement today that it plans to promote the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) to improve energy efficiency in buildings, lighting and the power grid.

Doris Pack MEP, Chairwoman of the European Parliament's Delegation for South-Eastern Europe, has drawn a positive conclusion from the Joint Parliamentary Meeting between the European Parliament and the national parliaments of the Western Balkans yesterday in Brussels. The meeting, which was jointly organised by the European Parliament and the Slovenian parliament, brought together national Members of Parliament from the successor states of the former Yugoslavia and from Albania.

During this morning's debate on an interim report on the scientific facts of climate change, drawn up by Parliament's Temporary Committee on Climate Change, Jens Holm (GUE/NGL, Sweden) welcomed the report but said we should be going much further.
"We need to help our citizens live in an nvironmentally friendly way" said MEP Holm, calling for less car travel, less plane travel and a stop to the endless building of motorways. "We must question the EU's current economic model based on continual growth, which is not sustainable," he concluded.