In her State of the Union address on Wednesday 13 September, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, returned to the energy crisis within the EU, which had led her, in last year’s speech (see EUROPE 13021/1), to propose a series of major measures to deal with soaring electricity prices. It now seems to be turning towards a more structural vision of European energy policy and the overall decarbonisation of the industry, notably by proposing a “European Wind Power package”.
The President of the Commission referred to the major economic challenge of inflation, while welcoming the fact that Europe had begun to bring down energy prices and that the bloc had “enough energy to get through the winter”.
Pooling energy demand and purchases
She highlighted the European initiative to aggregate demand and purchase energy jointly, in particular via the EU energy platform for joint gas purchases (see EUROPE 13222/14).
She went on to say that she wanted to “replicate this model of success” in other areas, such as critical raw materials and clean hydrogen.
She also welcomed the fact that the EU is now attracting more investment in clean hydrogen than the United States and China combined.
A European package of measures for the wind energy industry
The main objective now is to support each sector in developing an economic model that can accompany the decarbonisation of industry (see other news).
As far as the wind energy industry is concerned, Ms von der Leyen presented a specific package for wind power aimed at further speeding up the issuing of permits, which is already enshrined in the Renewable Energy Directive adopted the previous day in plenary (see EUROPE 13248/3), and improving auctioning systems, access to financing and the stability of supply chains, while focussing on skills.
See Ms von der Leyen’s speech: https://aeur.eu/f/8is
See the Commission’s letter of intent: https://aeur.eu/f/8it (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)