Highlighting the foundations for “profound change” laid in the energy field during the 2019-2024 legislature, outgoing EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson acknowledged, as did a large number of MEPs, that the EU was not moving fast enough to bring down energy prices and meet its decarbonisation targets.
She was speaking during a debate on the State of the Energy Union Report 2024 (see EUROPE 13480/2) at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday 17 September.
“Between 2021 and 2023, we increased our wind and solar energy capacity by 36% (...), but we need to maintain this pace and accelerate if we want to go from 23% renewables in our energy mix last year to 42.5% in 2030”, the Commissioner pointed out.
Virgil-Daniel Popescu (EPP, Romanian) believes that it will only be possible to achieve the 2030 climate targets by improving energy efficiency, speeding up electrification in sectors such as heating, and increasing hydrogen and nuclear energy production, in particular by developing small modular reactors (SMRs).
He also called for the interconnection of South-East Europe with Western Europe to be improved, referring to a letter sent by Greece to the European Commission on 13 September (see EUROPE 13482/16) warning of a significant rise in prices in the region since the summer.
“The Commission must do something. We need to increase the interconnection between our States and ensure that energy flows freely between north and south and west and east”, he said.
Several other MEPs also stressed the importance of investing massively in energy infrastructure – the Commission estimates that €584 billion will be needed this decade just to develop electricity networks.
For Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, French), it is also important to invest in storage facilities: “We don’t have the luxury of – or the budget for – wasting energy, especially if we are investing massively to make it decarbonised”.
Ms Simson also reiterated her call to the Member States lagging behind to submit their final national energy and climate plans (see EUROPE 13480/2), and acknowledged the importance of eliminating the remaining 18% of Russian gas imports.
On this point, Michael Bloss (Greens/EFA, German) deplored the transfer of “billions of euros to dictators”. “The 18% we still import from Russia is not a success. It’s far too much, because it funds missiles that are sent to Ukraine”, he warned.
Nicolás González Casares (S&D, Spanish), for his part, stressed the problems linked to Europe’s competitiveness, highlighted by the ‘Draghi’ report (see other news), and felt that the implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive and the reform of the European electricity market – adopted last year and for which he had been the lead rapporteur (see EUROPE 13389/12) – would be a solution to the problem of high electricity prices in Europe.
To review the report on the State of the Energy Union: https://aeur.eu/f/dgl (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)