European Union leaders were poised on Thursday to agree a timetable for action on tackling climate change they hope will enable the bloc to set the pace in global talks next year.
The EU sees itself as a world leader in the fight against global warming after member states agreed last year to cut emissions by 2020 and increase the share of wind, solar, hydro and wave power in electricity output by the same date. But failure to agree on the details by this time next year would delay EU laws and weaken the bloc in United Nations talks on curbing emissions with other countries, including the United States, in Copenhagen in November 2009.
EU leaders are aware that other countries are also preparing their economies for tougher climate change rules to come into force after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases that cause climate change, ends in 2012.
"The United States has started to invest in eco-technology and in renewables," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper. "When they decide to do it on a massive scale, it will be hard for Europe to compete, at least if it doesn't decide to step on the accelerator right now."
The 27 EU member states are due to agree during a two-day summit in Brussels to enact legislation by next March. The summit will also endorse calls for more transparency in financial markets following the global credit crisis and review a Franco-German plan to boost EU ties with Mediterranean states.
Highlighting the risks that have dented European growth forecasts, the euro hit another record high of $1.56 on Thursday and oil prices hovered near a peak of $110 a barrel. That prompted the head of the main EU employers' group, Ernest-Antoine Seilliere of BusinessEurope, to call for international talks on stabilising foreign exchange markets.
But Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg premier who chairs the group of 15 euro zone countries, said he thought growth in the area was not at risk. Others were less upbeat. "I don't think you can find anyone in Europe that is not concerned about high fuel prices. They are pushing inflation on a much higher level than it is right now in many areas," Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told reporters.