For the second time in less than a fortnight, the European commission has got cold feet on the brink of adopting an EU action plan on energy efficiency.

The draft plan was first put on ice in late September when commission President Jose Manuel Barroso raised eleventh hour concerns that it "lacked focus" (EED 25/09/06). Since then, officials have been working frantically to draft a more streamlined and what sources call "vision-filled" plan, according to the president’s wishes.

On Monday, the word went out that that the "improved" version would be adopted by the college of commissioners on 12 October. Energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who has repeatedly cited efficiency as his top political priority, appeared to have beaten off the Mr Barroso’s move to wrap the plan into a general EU energy policy due out in January.

Near the end of the day insiders suddenly began reporting that the publication date was off again, suggesting that Mr Barroso had once more lost confidence in the document, and its future was again up in the air.

Mr Barroso’s team is insisting that he does not want to undermine EU efforts to improve energy efficiency, according to EU sources, but rather sees joint publication as offering greater policy coherence. Advocates for the plan protest that this would inevitably lead to efficiency being subordinated to supply issues.

A Finnish government source told ENDS: "We are as confused as everyone else." The current EU presidency wants the plan adopted swiftly to allow energy ministers to hold meaningful discussions at their council meeting on 23 November. Helsinki has threatened to abandon the meeting in the absence of proposals from the commission (EED 28/09/06).

Its plan to launch in-depth discussions on the plan may already have been damaged. If ministers are not given long enough to digest the paper before the council meeting then there would be "no point", the source said.