Quote the report

Defard, C. 2023 “Energy Union 2.0. to deliver the European Green Deal” Report, Paris: Jacques Delors Institute, November

The Energy Union aims at ensuring secure, sustainable, competitive and affordable energy supply to EU consumers. The EU Green Deal initiated in 2019 further set the EU goal to reach climate neutrality by 2050. The multiple crises that hit the EU in recent years – pandemic, war, supply chain tensions – created an unprecedented alignment between the need to accelerate the energy transition, the need to safeguard security of supply, and the need to preserve EU competitiveness and social cohesion. EU common energy and climate policy improved as a result. Yet, EU regulatory, financing and governance instruments fall short compared to the scale of the challenges. More EU action is needed to achieve the objective of climate neutrality, while guaranteeing energy security and reasonable energy prices for households, businesses and industry.

This report proposes an Energy Union 2.0. as a strategic goal for the EU institutions to support the delivery of the EU Green Deal following the next EU elections in 2024. Key elements of an Energy Union 2.0 include:

• Governance: a more European, goal-oriented, collaborative energy and climate governance
• Funding: an increased EU budget fit for energy resilience, security and prosperity
• Democracy: a democratic renewal, including permanent citizen assemblies on climate and resilience, and permanent Energy and Climate Stakeholders Dialogue Platforms at the national and regional levels

Pragmatic steps to that end involve:

• A new EU Energy Security Strategy based on electrification, grids development, EU cleantech manufacturing and demand reduction, and including a strengthening of the EU Energy Platform
• An EU Clean Investment Plan, including an EU Sovereignty Fund allowing for the creation of an EU ARPA-E and the development of EU-wide support schemes for cleantech and grids
• An EU Energy Agency providing easy access to up-to-date energy data to support public and independent assessments of proposed and existing policies
• An “Energy and Climate Stakeholders Dialogue Platforms Facility” to offer financial and technical support for the early stages of the establishment of Energy and Climate Stakeholders’ Dialogue Platforms at the national level
• An EU Citizen Assembly on Climate closely tied to EU decision-making to discuss new EU instruments to help with the implementation of the EU Green Deal and the Energy Union