Surcharge proposal contradicts Socialist Group's position, Greens say

The Labour Party's proposal to halve the electricity surcharge contradicts the position of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament on the Renewable Energy Directive being discussed in Parliament, the vice-president of the Greens in the EP, Claude Turmes, said.

British socialist MEP Eluned Morgan is proposing a model of gradual price increase, he explained. In amendment 23 of the EP report for the third package on the electricity market, which would be voted on in May, the rapporteur on the Internal Market Directive is against flat-rate, cheap energy because it gives "the wrong signal".

Speaking at Alternattiva Demokratika's headquarters yesterday, Mr Turmes, an energy expert and also rapporteur on the Renewable Energy Directive, described the proposal as an "easy and populist way out. Consumers would pay indirectly because the government and the electricity company would have to find the money and oil prices are soaring. All experts expect them to go crazy".

The Greens and the Socialist Group have joined forces in the EP to come up with this model, which, he explained, was "based on the idea of combining social with economic policy".

The major political challenge for the next Maltese government was to rapidly design a strategy on how Malta could link to Italy and Europe for an electricity interconnection, Mr Turmes said.

It should work to convince the European Commission that a cable between Italy and Libya should pass by Malta so it would be less dependent on oil and could import wind and solar energy from North African countries, he suggested, highlighting the urgency.

"The European Commission's new infrastructure plan for energy should be finalised by September so, if the next government does not get itself into it by then, it would not have another opportunity for co-financing for the next 10 years," the Green MEP said. From the economic point of view, the big picture of Malta from Brussels, Mr Turmes said, is that it is "probably the country that is performing best among those that joined in 2004 and the government is seen as relevant and reliable".

AD chairman Harry Vassallo said the fact that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Opposition Leader Alfred Sant both spoke about legal difficulties to reverse the issue of development zones and the Safi supermarket showed that neither had the courage to go against their major financing lobby and the difficulty they both faced in committing to a proper environment policy.

"The campaign has been run on fear. a fear that is completely false. The truly frightening thing is that both are unable to address even basic problems," Dr Vassallo said.