A bid to freeze deepwater drilling in Europe in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster collapsed Wednesday under pressure from the multi-billion North Sea oil industry. European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger announced moves to tighten the issuing of drilling permits to ensure there is no repeat of the devastating Gulf of Mexico disaster in the United States.
But a temporary moratorium on deepwater exploration, the centre-piece of proposals that officials in his department thought had been agreed as late as Tuesday, was missing. Oettinger said European partners had "agreed to examine the possibility of whether it might not be a good idea to have a moratorium." But he admitted: "You are right when you point out the word moratorium as such is not used."
An EU source said EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, an English baroness, had successfully intervened. The North Sea oil industry is worth some six billion pounds a year to the British economy (6.8 billion euros or 9.5 billion dollars). The vast majority of it is located off Scotland, and an official with the Scottish government in Brussels said the EU had no legal basis under which it could impose such a ban.