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European Commission president José Manuel Barroso yesterday presented his manifesto to the European Parliament on how, if re-appointed, he would modernise the EU industry to achieve a sustainable future with greater market uptake of green technologies.

In his document, Barroso laid down his priority if he were to be re-appointed as head of the EU executive this autumn. His plans stressed the need for the new Commission to maintain the momentum towards a low emission economy with greater focus on energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies.

Radical pathway towards low carbon economy

On 10 September, the European Parliament will decide whether they will vote the following week for Barroso’s second term as Head of EU executive.

"The next Commission needs to maintain the momentum toward a low emission economy. We need to start working now on a radical pathway to reaching a far more sustainable Europe by 2020,” the EC President argued.

In his paper, Barroso argued that the EU should achieve an ambitious pathway towards a low emission economy. This should be the backbone of any new policy and should help modernise the whole of Europe’s industry in a bid to develop cleaner technologies with lesser greenhouse gas emissions.

The EU Supergrid

"One of the next great European projects is to give Europe a new European supergrid for electricity and gas.... so that we have secure and stable supplies of energy which meet our climate change goals," Barroso added.

Amongst the ambitions put forth by the EC President is that of a EU supergrid which should help the EU meet its 20/20/20 climate targets through greater use of renewable energies and consequent lesser greenhouse gas emissions.

Barroso argued that the EU had the political will to deliver on these targets and now had to work on finding the “right mix of regulation, technological development and funding to make it happen”.

Green skepticism

Although Barroso has full support of Heads of States with no other serious contender for his current position, he still needs to win the support of his Socialist, Liberal and Green opponents in the European Parliament to win a vote of approval.

Whilst green NGOs are dubious as regards the means to achieve all these ambitious targets as no concrete plan was laid on the table, the Green party, critical of Barroso's potential second term, said in a Reuters article yesterday it would not comment until he answers the questions from the European Parliament next week.