THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Reforming Europe in a time of war

Europe’s moment of truth on its way to the moon 35 a social market economy with 450 million consumers. In addition, better use must be made of existing syner- gy effects. We need new and stronger intra-European alliances when developing new sectors of industry and production. Cooperative ventures in battery production or green hydrogen can only be the beginning. The establishment of the EU Energy Platform in April 2022 is encouraging in this respect. This platform is in- tended to coordinate the voluntary joint purchase of gas, LNG, and hydrogen. This bundling of demand aims at improving the negotiating position with third countries in order to keep prices affordable and to secure the en- ergy supply. Here, too, the priority is to get away from dependence on Russian gas. Many experts and politicians compare this initiative to the EU’s previous experience in jointly procuring vaccines against COVID-19. In terms of structure, the European Commission has also launched an internal task force to support the EU Energy Platform, along with additional task forces to be set up at the regional levels. So far, the South-East Europe and the Central-Eastern regional task forces have been official- ly established. Regional task forces for North-West and South-West Europe and the Baltic States are to follow. Boost or death blow for the European Climate Policy? In terms of climate policy, it is currently difficult to assess what impact the war in Ukraine and the energy policy emergency will have in the medium term. Will the turbo of the European energy transition finally be ignited and the path to a climate-neutral future be embarked upon? After all, the oil crisis of the 1970s also brought a boost in environmental innovation. Or will the revival of coal finally put an end to hopes that the Paris Agreement, with its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, will be enforced? It is difficult to say right now how the Russian attack on Ukraine will ultimately actually affect climate change and the energy transition. At the moment, strangely enough, both are emerging. Suddenly, even notorious sceptics such as the Polish government are singing the praises of renewable energies. Germany’s liberal finance minister is even talking about “freedom energies”.At the same time, coal-fired power stations are being stoked up again and the global fossil lobby is triumphing over their new bonanza. This tension can also be observed at the EU level. On the one hand, there is an urgent need to implement the recently adopted REPowerEU plan, which aims to end Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and accelerate the green transition. On the other hand, the ‘Fit for 55’ package still needs to be adopted. As part of the European Green Deal, the EU has set itself the bind- ing target of becoming climate-neutral by 2050. As an intermediate step, it wants to reduce its emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030.The applicable climate, energy, and transport-related legislation is to be adapted to the new reduction targets through the Fit for 55 package. The package also includes a number of new initiatives that ultimately follow the same goal of accelerating en- ergy transition and contribute to the achievement of the climate-neutrality target. The proposal to revise the Renewable Energy Direc- tive is of central importance. According to it, the share of energy from renewable sources in the overall energy mix is to increase to at least 40 per cent by 2030.The current energy efficiency target at EU level is to be raised from 32.5 per cent to 36 per cent for final energy consumption and to 39 per cent for primary energy consumption. In the area of the planned energy transition, the fail- ures of the past are hitting Europeans with full force. The expansion of renewables has been neglected in many Member States; the fossil-fuel lobby has done a great job for itself. The desired ramping-up of the energy transition is now lacking two key inputs: raw materials and experts. These shortfalls are also likely to make it difficult to im- plement the Fit for 55 package. In order to do so, it is important to take massive countermeasures in the future. And in the social sector, too, there is a need to keep up with the speed of the proposed climate and energy reforms.