Prime Minister Joseph Muscat finds himself in Brussels for a meeting today, on one of the very issues which saw the Labour Party sweep to power in March – Energy.

According to the draft guidelines for the summit conclusions prepared by EU President Hermann Van Rompuy, member states will bind themselves to focus on “key aspects” of energy policy aimed at boosting growth productivity and employment to help overcome the effects of the economic crisis.

 Of particular interest to Malta is that draft conclusions highlight the fact that a “precondition to the completion of the internal energy market is adequate infrastructure, in particular sufficient interconnections between Member States and regions to improve security of supply”. Further on it underlines “the importance of adequate infrastructure connecting remote areas and islands”.

The issue is already being tackled through the decision by the former PN government opting for an interconnector to Sicily. It is EU funded and costs €182 million. The Prime Minister said, at the last Brussels summit in March, that Malta was considering another interconnector.

Since then, the government has also said that it intends to tap EU funds for an underwater gas pipeline. So far it is not yet clear the level of EU funding in this ambitious project which is estimated to cost anywhere between €400 million and €700 million, but we can be sure that the PM will put it on the agenda for discussion.

The draft conclusions also delve in issues related to consumer rights highlighting the “importance of affordable energy for households including notably vulnerable consumers affected by energy poverty”.  This, in particular, is very relevant to Malta as the government pledged that it would build a new gas plant within two years and that would lead to a reduction of household energy bills by 25%. One year after the cut to household bills, the government pledges to reduce the bills of commercial entities.

The EU council also calls for the roll-out of smart metres which empower consumers and deliver demand response – something which is already being implemented locally, but has given substantial teething problems.

The issue related to the fight against tax havens was not originally on the summit’s agenda, but following various media reports exposing the magnitude of tax evasion, EU Council President who chairs the regular summit meetings added this item to the agenda. Another issue is that of tax avoidance as recently highlighted in the United Kingdom by US coffee retailer Starbucks. So all in all, it looks to be a bit of a non-event, though it could give the PM a lot of material to work with, in regards to the government’s energy plan.