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
