On 21 October the final workshop was held in Brussels (Belgium) of the integrated transport and energy baseline until 2030 (iTREN-2030) modeling project. At the workshop a final scenario was presented that incorporated likely transport and energy policies, and the effects on European transport of a continued global plateau in oil production up to 2030. The integrated scenario was generated by four energy and transport models that have been linked in iTREN-2030 to increase the forecasting power of the transport policies of the European Commission.

In this post I describe the iTREN-2030 project and the different models, covering the POLES global energy supply and demand model in more detail, highlight the conclusions of the present integrated scenario, and give my reflection on the workshop commenting on some areas of improvement to augment the potential of the models.

The iTREN-2030 project is all the more important because the resulting model set and integrated scenario will be used by the European Commission (DG-Tren) in preparing the white paper on transport policies due for 2010. After discussion with the European Parliament and approval by the council of Minister, the European Union will as a result have set out its new course for the future of transport in the period up to 2020.

This round through the European political landscape now leaves the parties more used to power and starts dealing with those found more often in the opposition. The Greens – European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA) is the fifth largest political block at Parliament, with little over 5% of the seats. Greens-EFA is a coalition largely composed by state-level Green Parties plus a small number of Regionalist deputies. After an all-time high close to 10% in 1999 the party had what can be called a disappointing result in 2004. Embarking on a worldwide effort to promote its ideologies by the midst of the current term, it is quite possible that the Greens-EFA may reach a relevant stake at Parliament this time.

This is the second installment in a series, that attempts to summarize the Energy policies put forward by the main political blocs running for the European Parliament. This analysis is on the Party of European Socialists - PES. It is the eternal runner up behind EPP-ED, never getting more than one third of the seats at the euro-chamber. Nonetheless, through the alternating democratic process at state level, it has had also a relevant role in shaping the European Union to what it is today.

This post is the first in a series of posts looking at the policies in the field of energy proposed by the main political parties/blocks running for the 2009-2014 term at the European Parliament. This series will look into the guidelines on Energy Policy that each party is proposing to euro-citizens, based on the information made available on-line, found in home-pages, electronic leaflets or booklets.

Starting this series is the EPP-ED, the Christian-Democrat block that has held the largest number of seats at Strasbourg since the Assembly's first day.