EU interfering in Norwegian decision making

The Norwegian Parliamnet

The Norwegian government has just ended a public consultation concerning the EUs Revised Renewable Energy Directive. The response was a overwhelming 7 500 answers, most of them from private citizens negative to implementing the directive.

The Renewable Energy Directive is part of the Fourth Energy Package, which is considered relevant for the EEA-agreement, and therefore should be incorperated in the agreement. But many think that building more wind generators and photovoltaic installations will damage valuable Norwegian nature and should be avoided.

This is a highly sensitive political issue, and the commissioner for energy, Kadri, has threatened the Norwegian government with punishment if the directive is not implemented before mid-August.

Inspired by this EU-involvement in the Norwegian decisionmaking process, 23 Norwegian businesses and organisations have asked the EU Commission to set a deadline also for the Energy Efficiency Directive.

This development is very worrying. When the EEA-agreement law was adopted back in 1992, it was a prerequisite that the Norwegian decisionmaking process should not be affected. Now we are in a situation where the process might be altered by the Renewable Energy Directive, where the EU commissioner is interfering and where Norwegian businesses and organisations ask for even more interfering by the Commission.

This is not acceptable.