By Barbara Lewis

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is seeking new powers to speed through major energy projects aimed at curbing dependence on imported oil and gas and ensuring sustainable, green supplies, according to draft legislation seen by Reuters.

As part of preparations for the first EU budget to include energy spending, the draft indicates priorities for allocating 9.1 billion euros ($12.4 billion) set aside for 2014-2020 to improve power and gas pipelines and networks.

Although less than one percent of the EU's budget, the spending could help to attract further funds from the private sector and national governments and indicates the rising importance of EU energy policy.

The draft proposals include creating a "European coordinator" to help accelerate projects of EU-wide importance if they encounter "significant delays or implementation difficulties."

In addition, the permit-granting process for projects -- which at the moment can take a decade -- should not take more than three years.

If projects are important enough, public objections can be over-ridden on certain conditions.

"The least harmful route of that project shall be granted the necessary positive decisions," according to the draft being circulated in Commission departments.

A Commission spokeswoman declined to comment on the plans.

The most strategic projects would be those that help meet the European Commission's energy policy to ensure secure and sustainable supplies.

Priority projects include the area known as the Southern Gas Corridor for helping to reduce EU dependency on Russian natural gas supplies, as well as an integrated offshore electricity grid in the North Sea and in the Baltic region.

Europe's most prominent solution to reducing its vulnerability to any interruption of Russian supplies is the proposed Nabucco pipeline to carry gas from the Caspian.

EU officials have already said Europe is better prepared for any upsurge in tension between leading gas producer Russia and transit nation Ukraine. In early 2009, a pricing dispute blocked supplies to some EU countries.

Since 2009, more liquefied natural gas is potentially available for shipment to the EU, freed up by U.S. development of shale gas. In addition a new compressor at the Austrian hub Baumgarten, built with the help of EU money, means gas supplies can be distributed more widely.

GREEN AS WELL AS RELIABLE

For the EU, sustainable energy is as important as secure supply, which gives the European Commission a major role in trying to ensure intelligent, long-term investment rather than merely short-term solutions.

It has legally binding 2020 targets to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels and to increase the share of renewable energy in the mix to 20 percent.

Those aims and still more ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions laid out in a 2050 low carbon road map require vast changes to European energy infrastructure.

In total more than 1 trillion euros of investment is needed for the European electricity and gas sector in the decade between 2010 and 2020, the European Commission has said.

In June, it said the EU budgetary framework for 2014-2020 should set up a fund of 40 billion euros for energy, transport and other infrastructure, of which 9.1 billion would be dedicated to energy -- specifically energy transmission -- which covers gas and power networks.

The latest draft legislation is expected to be made public in the coming weeks, after which it could take at least a year to be finalized by EU governments and lawmakers.

It follows proposals last month also focused on helping to ensure security of supply by increasing the scope for the European Commission's involvement in energy negotiations between EU members and governments outside the 27-nation bloc.

The head of one of the rival projects to Nabucco the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) said he would welcome streamlined planning but said EU legislation must not give any projects unfair advantages.

"It must not distort competition. These projects should be given the chance to compete on their own merit," Elio Ruggeri, leader of the ITGI pipeline project told Reuters. ($1 = 0.733 Euros)

(Additional reporting by Charlie Dunmore and Illona Wissenbach in Brussels, and Henning Gloystein in London; editing by Rex Merrifield)