Brussels, 12/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - Companies from countries that are not members of the EU now supply over 90% of the oil imported into the EU and most of this imported oil, says sustainable transport campaign organisation Transport & Environment (T&E), is from unstable countries, threatening the EU's energy security. Taking as its basis the study carried out by Cambridge Econometrics unveiled on Tuesday 12 July, T&E calls for the EU strategy to decarbonise transport to set ambitious goals on the electrification of transport.
Only two of the EU's top ten oil supplies are European companies - Statoil of Norway, which supplies 11% of the crude oil imported into the EU and Shell of the Netherlands which provides 3% - while three Russian companies supply 36% of the EU's imported crude oil (Rosneft with 20%, Lukoil with 12% and Gasprom with 4%), the study highlights.
Europe's dependence on crude imports has increased sharply in the past 15 years, as has its dependence on diesel imports which doubled between 2001 and 2014 to €35 billion, T&E says. At the same time, EU domestic production and crude oil imports from countries with a very low risk of geopolitical instability, such as Norway, have decreased, worsening Europe's energy insecurity, the organisation adds.
“Europe's profligate use of oil is filling the pockets of big oil companies in unstable countries including Russia and Libya. Transport's thirst for imported oil and diesel costs every citizen around €300 a year - money that flows out of the European economy”, it says.
Measures to decarbonise transport, the biggest consumer of oil in the EU driving two-thirds of the demand for final petroleum products, would deliver substantial economic, environmental and energy security benefits, T&E argues. It points out that, according to a previous Cambridge Econometrics study, a shift to electric vehicles would lead to a 1% increase in EU GDP, create up to 2 million additional jobs and reduce emissions from cars and vans 83% by 2050.
With publication of the Commission's strategy for decarbonising the transport sector due for 20 July and the announcement of the agreement with the member states on the proposal for reducing emissions from sectors that are not part of the ETS scheme, T&E urges ambitious new targets for reducing emissions from vehicles for 2025, a comprehensive strategy to drive electrification of transport, measures to cut shipping and aviation emissions and an end to support for unsustainable biofuels. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)