BRUSSELS, Sept 15 (Reuters) – EU refineries are not
investing fast enough to shift the balance to diesel production
as the U.S. appetite to mop up surplus gasoline starts to wane,
a draft Commission document seen by Reuters said.

The European Union’s refining sector has struggled against
dwindling profit margins and a structural imbalance, which
requires it to import products to meet growing diesel demand,
while exporting unwanted gasoline.

BRUSSELS, Sept 15 (Reuters) – The EU’s executive “as a
matter of priority” is enforcing its single energy market laws
it says in a draft text, seen by Reuters, that states its
determination to create a barrier-free market-place, which has
angered dominant gas supplier Russia.

Early this month, the European Commission announced it had
opened an investigation into suspected anti-competitive market
practices by Russia’s Gazprom.

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s plan to secure and control a supply of Azeri natural gas, backed by legal agreements, is in jeopardy as Azerbaijan joins forces with Turkey to own and operate the main export pipeline.

By creating a so-called Southern Corridor to bring in large volumes of central Asian gas, the European Commission hopes to reduce dependence on Russian gas and avoid supply disruptions caused by disputes between Russia and Ukraine over gas deliveries via Ukrainian territory.

BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT, July 29 (Reuters) – Germany’s decision
to abandon nuclear energy and dwindling domestic subsidies for
renewables have stoked a dazzlingly ambitious plan to expand
Europe’s energy market into North Africa, with an array of giant
solar and wind plants glinting in the desert sun.

Desertec, a German consortium set up in 2009, envisages
Europe will import up to a fifth of its electricity from solar
and wind parks in North Africa and the Middle East by 2050.

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Washington will ratchet up the pressure next week to find a global solution to a bitter row over an EU law that makes airlines that use European airports pay for carbon emissions.

In the U.S. Senate, the powerful commerce committee will hold a vote on Tuesday on a bipartisan bill that would make it illegal to comply with the EU law.

BRUSSELS, July 26 (Reuters) – Manipulating international
commodity benchmarks such as Brent crude oil would be a
criminal offence, punishable by jail, under a set of reforms the
EU Commission has proposed in response to the rigging of a major
interest reference rate.

The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, announced on
Wednesday plans to tighten supervision of financial benchmarks
after a scandal involving interbank lending rate Libor, used to
set prices for trillions of dollars of financial products.

BRUSSELS, July 25 (Reuters) – The European Commission
presented keenly-awaited plans to bolster the Emissions Trading
Scheme (ETS) by reducing a massive burden of surplus allowances
and urged member states to hurry them through by the year-end.

The proposals are the latest in a series of efforts to fix a
market designed to be the mainstay of the EU’s climate policy.

BRUSSELS, July 25 (Reuters) – The European Commission will
outline a keenly-awaited plan on Wednesday to bolster the
Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) by reducing a massive burden of
surplus allowances.

It is the latest of a string of efforts to fix a market,
which is designed to be the mainstay of the EU’s climate policy,
but in the past has been undermined by a series of scams and now
is flooded with oversupply because of recession.

BRUSSELS, July 20 (Reuters) – The European Commission
confirmed on Friday that it will announce plans next week to
withhold carbon allowances to support the struggling Emissions
Trading Scheme (ETS), which has suffered a collapse in prices
under the burden of oversupply.

It has decided on a two-step process to reinforce the
legality of what is meant to be a relatively quick fix to the
market’s weakness. Concerns about possible delays and lack of
detail about next week’s announcement drove ETS prices sharply
lower earlier in the week.

BRUSSELS, July 19 (Reuters) – Ancient, little-known species
of fish, living deep in Atlantic waters, could gain protection
from EU proposals published on Thursday to phase out certain
kinds of deep-water fishing.

The Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, proposes
phasing out licences for deep-sea fishing using methods known as
bottom trawls and bottom-sea gillnets.