European Parliament
Wijkman (PPE-DE ),
rapporteur
. – Mr President, in Amendment No 6 to this report, Mrs Boudjenah proposes to add a sentence to paragraph 1. She stresses the important role of access to energy for development and suggests that we characterise access to energy as an essential human right. I am sympathetic to her reasoning, although I do not think we can make such a statement. Access to energy is not part of any human rights convention.
I would, however, be prepared to replace 'essential human rights' by 'economic and social rights'. If the House agrees to such an oral amendment, I would then recommend that it support the amendment thus corrected. If not, I would advise the House to vote against the part of the amendment which refers to essential human rights.

