国际英语新闻：Barroso unhappy with progress made by EU on energy efficiency

BRUSSELS, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso expressed dissatisfaction Wednesday with progress made by the European Union (EU) on energy efficiency.

"Let me tell you very frankly that I am unhappy with the progress made on energy efficiency," Barroso said during an orientation debate on energy and innovation here.

While the EU was making a lot of progress on renewables and was expected to fulfil its 20 percent target by 2020, "this is not the case for our target on energy efficiency," the president said.

He called on EU leaders, who are to hold an extraordinary meeting in Feburary, to "agree on the key missing infrastructure links and on how to remove all barriers to a truly European energy market".

"I would like to see the European Council agree on concrete actions to reach the 20 percent target by 2020," Barroso said.

The president said the EU should develop future work around five priorities, which included a strong energy policy, an internal market in energy, building the EU's new energy infrastructure, making decisive progress on energy efficiency and "an effective and united" European approach in terms of external energy policy.

"I believe that security and diversification of our energy supplies are one of Europe's strategic priorities," he said.

To achieve its energy efficiency and renewables targets by 2020, the EU unveiled a new energy strategy in November last year, proposing to invest 1 trillion euros (about 1.32 trillion U.S. dollars).