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Sunday, April 08, 2007


European Parliament Written Declaration
Green MEP, Caroline Lucas, has tabled the following Written Declaration in the European Parliament.

Written declaration on introducing a prohibition on the sale of incandescent light bulbs in the European Union

The European Parliament,

– having regard to Rule 116 of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas energy saving is an essential part of the EU’s strategy to reduce CO2 emissions and improve security of supply,

B. whereas 80% of home lighting today uses highly inefficient incandescent bulbs thatconvert only 5% of the energy used into light,

C. whereas these bulbs could be rapidly replaced, saving €5-8 billion across the EU in fuelbills and around 20 million tonnes of CO2,

D. whereas there is a growing worldwide move towards legislation to ban incandescentbulbs, including in Cuba (May 2006), Venezuela (November 2006), California (February2007), Australia (February 2007) and Ontario (February 2007),

1. Calls upon the Commission to initiate legislation to ban the sale of incandescent lightbulbs in the European Union by 2010;

2. Calls upon Member States, with EU encouragement, immediately to launch public information campaigns on the economic and environmental advantages of efficient lighting systems and to maximise existing legislation to facilitate the phasing-out ofincandescent bulbs;

3. Urges the Commission to use the proposal for a new international energy efficiency agreement to launch a global ban on the use of incandescent bulbs;

4. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of thesignatories, to the Commission and the Member States.

If 50% of MEPs signed this document it would become official European Parliament policy.

Elements of the lighting industry are known to be resistant to this document's wording, in particular the emphasis on a blanket ban of incandescent light bulbs, and to prefer that the declaration was calling for specific types of incandescent to be phased out by specific dates.

BTB suspects that it is unlikely that 50% of MEPs will sign up to this written declaration and that this call for a wholesale ban will simply focus minds across the EU on what measures would represent sensible and meaningful progress.

It is clear to BTB that some incandescents will need to be phased out later than others, in particular due to the need for a range of specialist + medical exemptions and responsible recycling schemes but that much more is also likely to be possible than the manufacturers would ever volunteer on their own accord... especially with regard to phasing out 60W and 100W screw and bayonet incandescents as quickly as possible.

BTB was delighted to offer Caroline Lucas' office some advice before this written declaration was tabled, but was unable to cover all of the relevant details at short notice.

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