“Recent years have revealed the real cost of dependence with regard to imported fossil fuels”, stated Markus Rauramo—the president of Eurelectric, the European federation of electricity producers, as well as CEO of the Finnish energy company Fortum—during Eurelectric’s Power Summit in Helsinki on Wednesday, 3 June. “Energy security and decarbonisation are no longer two separate objectives. They are inseparable. In this context, Europe’s response must be clear”, he added.
The words of the company’s leader echo those of Commissioner for Energy Dan Jørgensen, who declared that very day in a meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), “We cannot remain stuck at 23%” of electrification. For that matter, he has promised that an “ambitious electrification target” would be part of the Electrification Action Plan, which will be presented before the summer.
So, it came as no surprise when Commissioner Jørgensen and Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition Teresa Ribera attended Eurelectric’s summit in Helsinki on Thursday, 4 June, to discuss how electrification could strengthen energy security and industrial competitiveness.
It was a successful gamble for the European Commission’s representatives, seeing as Eurelectric and organisations from the digital and energy sectors signed the ‘Twin Transition Commitments’—an agreement adopted in parallel with the legislative package on technological sovereignty that the European Commission presented on Wednesday, 3 June (see EUROPE 13880/1 and 13880/4)—at the summit.
Read the letter of commitment: https://aeur.eu/f/m6i (Original version in French by Nadège Delépine)