L'accès aux ressources énergétiques sous l'angle du développement durable

Access to energy services is a right everyone should be entitled to. The energy sector has attracted particular attention from an economical and financial point of view (e.g. liberalization of the markets), from an environmental point of view (e.g. European energy-climate policy), but relatively little from a social point of view. This social component, which represents the third pillar of sustainable development, has to be fully integrated into energy policy, especially given the increase in prices and the complexity of the sector, both of them often causing the exclusion from energy services. The article starts with a brief description of the present and future Belgian institutional framework, and is followed by highlighting some possible solutions which should improve the access to energy services for vulnerable households. These possible solutions have deliberately not been classified by level of public authority. Indeed, energy policy should be the object of a coherent approach and of a real coordination between the different levels of public authorities. The most ideal institutional framework would be a real European energy policy provided that it would cover the three pillars of sustainable development. JEL Codes ? H53, I38, Q48.