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Financial Times
EU summit reaches deal on energy liberalisation By By George Parker in Barcelona Published: March 16 2002 10:50 | Last Updated: March 17 2002 12:38
European leaders on Saturday hailed the Barcelona summit a success after a deal was hammered out to partly open France's energy markets.
But the hesitant progress towards economic liberalisation hardly matched the rhetoric of Tony Blair, British prime minister, who said last year that the summit would be "make or break" for reform.
The key sticking point - the opening to competition of France's energy market - was solved with a classic EU compromise.
Jacques Chirac, French president, and Lionel Jospin, prime minister, agreed to liberalise EU gas and electricity markets, for business customers only, by 2004.
That amounts to more than 60 per cent of the total market. However, President Chirac and Mr Jospin refused to accept a timetable to give French householders a choice of supplier. France also won assurances that rural areas and disadvantaged citizens would not suffer as a result of the liberalisation of power supplies.
Nevertheless, Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish prime minister and holder of the EU rotating presidency, said an "irreversible" process had been put in place, and his upbeat mood was shared by other leaders at the summit. (...)
The agreements and targets included:
- Proceeding with Galileo, the EU reply to the US dominance of global satellite positioning technology;
- Full integration of financial services markets by 2005;
- Raising research and development spending to 3 per cent of EU gross domestic product by 2010;
- Widespread availability of broadband technology by 2005;
- Measures to improve labour mobility, including flexible pension and health care arrangements;
- A deal on the so-called Single Sky proposal to open air competition by June 2002. (...)