Strategic oil reserves of EU member nations should be tapped only in cases of extreme need, the spokesman for European Energy and Transport Commissioner Loyola De Palacio said on Tuesday. “The strategic reserves must only be used if and when they can be effective,” Gilles Gantelet told a press briefing.
“They must only by used in cases of extreme need and where they can have a political or psychological impact.” For the moment the commission has no definitive position on whether the reserves should be used, he added.
“The reserves are the property of the member states,” he said. The commmission may, on its own initiative or the initiative of a member state, organize coordination, but it is the member states that decide whether to make use of their reserves. Gantelet stressed however that such decisions must be part of a coordinated approach.
Bureau Report