La biomasse, activité alternative au développement des zones rurales

V- Prospects for widening : the opening to the PECO

1- The energy situation

The applicant countries are not distinguished from the Union in comparison with the long-term evolution of their consumption even if they currently show an unquestionable delay in energy saving. However, the period of exceeded crisis, they seem subjected to a stronger pressure of the growth of the request for energy because, in particular, of an economic growth at the horizon 2010 which will be appreciably higher than that awaited in the Member States (between 3 to 6% per annum vis-a-vis that of the Union from 2 to 4% per annum). This transitional period could be an advisability for these countries of modernizing their energy systems. The growth of the energy demand of transport will be even larger. After widening, the Union will have to ensure the mobility of more than 170 million additional inhabitants on an increased territory of 1,86 million km2. Taking into account the variation of development ave the Union, one can expect a strong dynamics of correction, according to current tendencies', one thus envisages an economic growth of the applicant countries twice higher than that of Europe of the 15, is per annum approximately 5 to 6% during ten next years. Its corollary is the foreseeable increase in the request for transport.

The consumption of all confused energies of the PECO is 285 million tons oil equivalent, for a production of 164 million tons oil equivalent.

2- International energy co-operation

After the crisis of 1973, in fact the United States made the decision to join together in Washington, in February 1974, a conference whose work led to the conclusion of the International agreement on energy and to creation at OECD of the International Energy Agency. Signed on November 18, 1974, by the Member States of OECD, the Agreement on an international program of energy came into effect on January 19, 1976. It is about a vast programme of co-operation which aims at ensuring, in the event of crisis, a common level of autonomy of the supplies oil and to implement a program of long-term co-operation in order to reduce the dependence with regard to the oil imports and to promote the relations of co-operation between producer countries and consumer countries.

More promising appears to be the European charter of the energy, which establishes the principles, the objectives and the means of a co-operation paneuropéenne in the field of energy. Signed on December 17, 1991 in The Hague by almost all the European countries like by the Community, the United States, Canada and Japan, the charter are in fact a code of good control. This co-operation paneuropéenne is helped by the program HEADLIGHT intended for the Central European country and Eastern and by program TACIS, applicable to the States independent of the old Soviet Union. The programmes of technical aid in the field of energy cover the design and the planning of the energy policy of these countries, supply and energy demand, the price and tariffing system, energy saving, the interconnection of the East-West networks, the formation, the environmental protection, the reorganization of energy industry and nuclear safety. In this context, an agreement was concluded between the EC and Poland in the oil field^43(*). Energy and nuclear safety also appear in the European agreements concluded with the PECO in preparation from their adhesion in the EU. Several energy centers, created in the PECO thanks to the Community programs, are used as points of contact between the economic operators of these countries and the industry of the EU.

* ⁴³ COM (97) 391