The European Commission announced the launch February 4 of work on an Energy Union for the EU; a fundamental step towards the completion of single energy market and reforming how Europe produces, transports and consumes energy.
The Energy Union, with a forward-looking Climate Change Policy, is one of the key political priorities of the Juncker Commission, the announcement says. After more than 60 years from the founding of the Coal and Steel Community, the Commission today recently released a plan for reorganizing European energy policies and kicked off work for European Energy Union.
The group notes that the European Union imports 55% of its energy. 90% of the housing stock in Europe is energy inefficient, energy infrastructure is aging and the internal energy market is far from complete.
In his Political Guidelines presented to the European Parliament on 15 July 2014, President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker said “Europe relies too heavily on fuel and gas imports. We need to reduce this dependency while keeping our energy market open to countries outside the EU. Therefore we need to pool our resources, combine our infrastructures and unite our negotiating power with third countries. We owe it to future generations to limit the impact of climate change and to keep energy affordable – by using more energy from renewable sources and becoming more energy efficient.”
Next to come is a high-level seminar organized by the Latvian Presidency and the Commission, to be held in Riga June 2.