The Members of the European Committee of the Regions adopted on 16 July a set of legislative and policy recommendations on the Winter Energy Package, presented by the European Commission in November 2016. One of the crucial opinions was drafted under the leadership of ECR Group Coordinator in the Environment Commission Ms Daiva Matonienė.

Ms Matonienė is a Member of Šiauliai City Council and former Deputy Minister of Environment of Lithuania.

Commenting on the adoption of her opinion, she said: "We need to be ambitious when it comes to increasing our use of clean energy sources but we need to do so in a 'localist' way, meaning by enabling regions and cities to adapt measures to their specificities and not putting them into a legislative straightjacket. We need to remember that Member States have different capacities when it comes to renewable energy and we need to be ambitious, but also realistic and cost-efficient".

"Overall we welcome in our opinion the European Commissions "Clean Energy for All Europeans" package but as local and regional authorities we would like to see more to be done in terms of ensuring greater electricity market integration. I personally also believe that the Commission should pay more attention to the development of new environmentally-friendly and energy efficient technologies, in line with the technological neutrality principle", said the ECR Group rapporteur.

The 'Clean Energy for All Europeans' package is the main instrument to move forward Europe's sustainable energy transition. It covers energy efficiency, renewable energy, the design of the electricity market, security of electricity supply and governance rules for the Energy Union.