The future path of the European energy sector: Maintaining ambition and strengthening cooperation

As the winds blow against the Green Deal ahead of the European elections on June 9, the EU must remain a key driver in the fight against climate change.

The next term will be crucial to ensuring that the ambitions of the Green Deal come to fruition, enabling the decarbonization of the European economy while strengthening the EU’s international competitiveness.

This also means paying special attention to citizen acceptance by ensuring that each of us benefits from the energy transition.

Climate change and geopolitical changes require a decisive response from Europe.

The 2021-2022 energy crisis has reminded us that dependence on energy supplies carries significant risks. Energy resilience and sovereignty must remain a priority because a resilient energy sector makes Europe stronger and more independent in its decision-making.

This means reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, strengthening our renewable and low-carbon energy production capacity, further decarbonizing and electrifying our economy, and preparing our network infrastructure for this major change.

Interconnectivity is key to European energy sovereignty

The European internal energy market has proven to be the backbone of a reliable and increasingly low-carbon energy supply across the EU.

With the increasing share of renewable and low-carbon electricity in the system, combined with the need to reduce the share of fossil fuels in final energy consumption, its role will continue to grow, ensuring that electricity is always produced where it is cheapest and most decarbonized and allows us to save European energy sovereignty, also thanks to new investments.

This advantage should be preserved and strengthened by further deepening cooperation at EU level.

Even if we have different national energy mixes reflecting different choices about decarbonizing our economies, these differences are a strength rather than a weakness because they are complementary. To meet their specific needs, Germany and France exchange electricity.

In 2022, France imported 5.5 TWh of electricity from Germany, while in 2023, Germany imported 9.3 TWh of electricity from France.

Such interconnections increase security of supply by compensating for possible fluctuations in the generation or transmission of electricity and enable electricity suppliers to sell energy to a customer in another EU country.

However, European energy cooperation can only work effectively if we ensure a high degree of interconnection.

Given the strong industrial clusters on both sides of the Rhine that need to be decarbonized, we propose stronger Franco-German cooperation on interconnections, in line with the exchange potential between both countries.

A strong energy sector, a more competitive Europe

A strong European energy sector also means a more competitive Europe.

Industry competitiveness is closely linked to Europe’s energy transformation. The EU has the potential to become a technological leader in the energy transition, further increasing its energy sovereignty.

However, today we see disturbing relationships in industries key to the energy transformation, such as the photovoltaic industry.

That’s why we need a stronger and more coordinated EU industrial policy to reduce Europe’s dependence on imports of net-zero technology and energy, strengthen the resilience of the value chain and build a stronger domestic market.

To achieve this, we need to encourage European customers to shift from fossil to low-carbon technologies with well-balanced measures to support market access for ‘Made in the EU’ strategic technologies.

This can also help internalize strategic sovereignty and resilience in the energy transition.

Let us implement the arrangements made under the current mandate, give economic actors greater visibility, strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and ensure a just transition for all citizens.

The German and French energy industries are convinced that we will only prosper by exploiting the complementarities and synergies between our countries.

Only close cooperation with our European partners will be able to meet the challenges we face.

Christine Goubet-Milhaud is president of the Union Française de l’Electricité (UFE) and Kerstin Andreae is managing director of the German Energy and Water Industry Association (BDEW).

At Euronews we believe that all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to submit your pitches or submissions and join the conversation.