Connarty Warns EU To Stay Out Of North Sea Oil.

Michael Connarty warns the EU to stay out of oil and gas.

CONNARTY WARNS EU TO STAY OUT OF NORTH SEA OIL AND GAS

Linlithgow and East Falkirk MP, Michael Connarty has challenged the UK government to firmly block any move to give the EU control over Britain’s ability to exploit its North Sea oil and gas. Mr. Connarty, a former Chair of the Commons EU Scrutiny Committee and a UK delegate to the Council of Europe, was speaking in a European Committee debate on ‘Offshore Oil and Gas’.

He recalled how the Labour government had succeeded in stopping a previous attempt by the European Commission to include a clause in the Lisbon Treaty giving the EU competence over Britain’s offshore oil and gas regime. Now a new EU document proposes to “work towards a single new piece of specific legislation governing offshore oil and gas activities, including licensing, liability regimes, industry responsibility and enhanced public oversight.”

Michael Connarty said the UK government should tell the EU, “We’re quite capable of doing this ourselves. We have a good arrangement in our industry. We have the ability to transfer skills and work cooperatively with other EU countries, but we’ll not do anything that will give the EU Commission even a joint competence”.

He warned, “If we did so, it could go to the European Court of Justice and claim to represent our competence. This is happening in case after case and it was the purpose of the Lisbon Treaty. We will be outvoted under qualified majority voting in the European Council and that will become the normal method of legislating. This must not be stage 1 of an approach to an energy control system by the EU. That is the danger – which is why the European Scrutiny Committee called for this debate.

“History shows that when the Commission gets a toehold it them gets two handholds and another toehold, eventually climbing up to another level of power.”

Mr Connarty challenged Energy Minister, Charles Hendry to, “Assure us there will be no question of our giving away competence to the EU in any of these matters.”

In response Charles Hendry said he had no intention of moving from the Lisbon Treaty position. However, he also said, “I am more than happy to work towards international regulations if they are to approach the high standards that we already have, but I am not prepared to countenance international regulations that would diminish our standards.”

Speaking afterwards, Michael Connarty said, “I intend to keep a close eye on what the government does on this matter. I don’t want to see any compromise on total control over our North Sea oil and gas regime.”

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