28th Franco-British Summit - Ssummary of decisions taken on Energy, Climate Change and Defence (informal document)


Paris, 9 June 2006

Energy

The two countries are determined to work together in the framework of the European energy policy, which they wish to see developed.

Goals:

  • Place the energy policy within a long-term vision with three main objectives: security of supply, combating climate warming, and competiveness.
  • Work together on developing an external part of the European foreign policy.

Means:

  • Creation, at European level, of a high-level energy group to monitor the energy situation; this group would have all the necessary information in the event of a crisis and identify the means to provide an agreed response.
  • Launch of a dialogue with the producer countries (Russia, North Africa and the Middle East) and transit countries (Turkey, Ukraine, etc.).
  • Setting of objectives and quantified indicators, particularly for transport, housing and energy production.
  • Establishment of a Franco-British nuclear forum with regular meetings of government and industry representatives and experts to discuss nuclear cooperation, particularly research, decommissioning and waste management.


Climate change

Goals:

  • Work together from today on action to combat climate change, a serious long-term challenge. The increase in average global temperature must not exceed 2ÂșC compared with pre-industrial levels.

Means:

  • Guide the international discussions, particularly at the G8 and in the European framework, to promote ambitious world action building on the Kyoto Protocol and its market instruments; establishment of a long-term international objective for the stabilization of concentrations of greenhouse gases within the atmosphere well belong 550 ppm.
  • Use the EU's partnerships with China and India and all the emerging countries to enable them to contribute towards the global efforts to combat climate change.
  • Invite the Commission to take forward work on the European Emission Trading Scheme to provide firms with the long-term certainty they need in order to invest in low-carbon emission technologies.
  • Support efforts to boost capacity in developing countries, particularly in Africa, to combat climate change.


Development

Goal:

  • Implement the reforms and commitments on development assistance and debt made in 2005, including those made at the G8 summit at Gleneagles and at the United Nations world summit.

Means:

  • Support for innovative financing, in particular the launch of the International Finance Facility for Immunization, the working group on the international finance facility and the development of the IDPF (International Drug Purchase Facility) which will be partly financed by means of the solidarity contribution on airline tickets;
  • Maintain the ambition of achieving an ambitious, balanced and pro-development outcome to the Doha Development Round.
  • Support for an ambitious plan for education with predictable financial contributions and personnel.


Security and defence

Goal:

  • Commitment of both countries to strengthen the Europeans' capability to contribute to international peace and security. Commitment to respond to the new threats, with the cooperation on aircraft-carriers an important symbol of this bilateral commitment.
  • Within the European Union, encouragement of better use of civil and military tools to respond to crisis situations.

Means:

  • Pooling of efforts for conflict prevention in the various operations under way. Support for the European Union military holding force, in DRC
  • Support the set-up of a network of African military training schools, with a view to helping the African countries and regional organizations acquire their own conflict prevention and management capabilities.
  • Establishment of high-level bilateral working group made up of French and British representatives from government and industry on armaments programmes.
  • Support for the European Defence Agency. In research and technology, the Agency must encourage European States to step up their efforts by identifying common projects