The European Commission wants to give investors long-term confidence about the direction of EU energy policy, including potentially binding 2030 energy goals, EU energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger said Tuesday.

"We hope that by the latest at the end of next year we will have clearer ideas about the preferable [long-term] scenarios," Oettinger told a conference in Brussels focused on the EC's energy roadmap 2050.

"And we hope to be able to set binding goals in terms of renewables, CO2 emissions and energy efficiency so that everybody knows the direction of our energy policy toward 2030, so investors can be more confident in their planning," he added.

The EC's energy roadmap 2050, unveiled last December, sets out different scenarios for achieving EU leaders' agreed voluntary goal to cut the EU's greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050.

On renewables, Oettinger said the policy choice depended on when they will be able to compete directly with fossil fuels.

The European Union and Ukraine continue cooperation in implementation of the measures agreed in the EU-Ukraine Association Agenda in the areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, including the implementation of the road map agreed under the Energy Memorandum of Understanding in these areas. Currently one of the major tasks on the agenda is to set up an appropriate institutional framework to sustain implementation of such measures in the long term. To contribute to setting up of such institutional framework the EU launched new technical assistance project as part of the Sector Policy Support Programme (SPSP) signed by the EU and Ukraine in December 2009.

On January 27, 2012 at 11.00 the new EU financed Project “Capacity Building of the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation” has been launched at the premises of the Project Beneficiary, State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation of Ukraine (SAEEEC).