Abstract
Christian CLEUTINX is principal administrator with the Commission of the European Communities. He is presently based in Washington, D. C. where he is responsible for energy, industrial policy and environment affairs. He joined the Commission in 1975 and has successively been in charge of European coal investment policy and energy analysis and forecasts. Before that he held responsibilities in the fields of marketing and production planning with Petrofina and Raychem Corporation. He holds a degree in Economics and Finance and a Master's degree in Business Administration.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. May I also immediately thank the Society of Petroleum Engineers for giving me the opportunity to participate in such a prestigeous symposium. As an official of the Commission of the European Communities my presentation will concentrate on energy policies as developed within the European Communities.
As an introduction, it might be useful to review briefly the functioning of what is generally known as the European Common Market. The Community traces its origins to the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1951, to create a European Coal and Steel Community. The idea behind this Treaty was that the pooling of coal and steel production would immediately provide for the establishment of common bases for economic development as a first step in the Federation of Europe. The six founding Member States – Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – decided that this experiment, which proved a significant success, should be deepened and extended to embrace their entire economies. In 1957, they signed the Treaty of Rome setting up the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). Over the years, six other countries – Denmark, Greece, Ireland, The United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal – joined. This enlarged Community which accounts for 2 0 percent of world trade has a population of 320 million people and a GNP slightly larger than that of the US.
