Brussels, 04/02/2016 (Agence Europe) -According the the figues published by Eurostat on Thursday 4 February, the energy dependency of the European Union (EU) stood in 2014 at 53.4%, meaning that the EU needed to import just over half of the energy it consumed in 2014.
The EU statistical office explained that energy dependency in the EU was higher in 2014 than in 1990, but slightly lower than its highest point recorded in 2008. The evolution of EU energy dependency has not been constant between 1990 and 2014, however, it has continuously stood above 50% since 2004. Energy dependency varies widely across member states. In 2014, the least dependent member states were Estonia (8.9%), Denmark (12.8%) and Romania (17.0%), followed by Poland (28.6%), the Czech Republic (30.4%), Sweden (32.0%), the Netherlands (33.8%) and Bulgaria (34.5%). At the opposite end of the scale, the highest energy dependence rates were registered in Malta (97.7%), Luxembourg (96.6%), Cyprus (93.4%), Ireland (85.3%), Belgium (80.1%) and Lithuania (77.9%).
Among the five Member States consuming the largest amounts of energy, the least dependent on energy imports were the United Kingdom (45.5%) and France (46.1%), in contrast to Germany (61.4%), Spain (72.9%) and Italy (75.9%).
Eurostat illustrates that nine member states recorded in 2014 their lowest energy dependency rates since 1990: Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal and Romania. In contrast, the Czech Republic is the only member state recording a peak of its energy dependency in 2014.
The Eurostat report is available at the following address: http://goo.gl/KIh9n8. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)