The European Commission appears to have backtracked on earlier plans for a compulsory moratorium on deepwater oil drilling inside the EU, with new proposals set to call for a voluntary ban at member state discretion.
The executive’s energy commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, is scheduled to announce the review of Europe’s drilling activities on Wednesday (13 October), calling on national governments to voluntarily suspend drilling in very deep waters and environmentally sensitive areas like the Arctic