On Tuesday, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said high-energy prices were challenging the EU’s global competitiveness, so the bloc should invest in renewable energy.
She claimed that energy prices, which had been ten times higher last summer, fell to the level the EU was paying before the war in Ukraine began, but said they were still higher than the cost paid by countries outside the bloc. Von der Leyen asserted at the 2023 Green Deal Summit in Prague, the Czech Republic:
The price we pay for energy is structurally higher than in other continents, and this is an issue for our global competitiveness.
According to von der Leyen, the EU must invest in renewables and “make cheap and clean energy available for all Europeans” that will also protect the bloc “against the high prices of imported fossil fuels.”
She welcomed the fact that “today, Europe, for the first time in our history, generates more electricity from wind and sun than from gas” but called on speeding up the green transition. Von der Leyen argued:
Renewable energy is not only good for the planet, but it is home-grown, it creates good jobs here and it is good for our energy independence.
The Green Deal programme, announced just after the inauguration of the Von der Leyen-led European Commission in 2019, aims to achieve climate neutrality and zero carbon emissions in the EU by 2050.
The European Green Deal is also our lifeline out of the COVID-19 pandemic. One third of the €1.8 trillion investments from the NextGenerationEU Recovery Plan, and the EU’s seven-year budget will finance the European Green Deal.
The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals to make the EU’s climate, energy, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
