energy union

Energy security was the underlying idea behind the Energy Union which originally merely sought to reduce dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia. Over time, however, the Energy Union gradually evolved to become a way to boost European competitiveness, provide an impulse for innovation, contribute to climate policy, as well as ensure sustainable socio-economic modernisation. Energy was the foundation of the European Community – will Energy Union emerge as a driver of European cooperation in the spirit of solidarity, strengthening the European Union as a whole?

The Baltic Sea region can be the role model for the rest of Europe and provide an example of how to deliver a truly regional renewable energy onto the power market. This is what the was agreed among the participants of the policy breakfast organised in the European Parliament on the 1st December following the publication of the European Commission’s winter package.

"When Western Europe thinks about greening its electricity generation, Poland has a more basic problem of how to change people’s minds and turn them away from using dirty fuel in their homes. But Poland’s electricity market is also about to change and a lot has happened since Poland joined the European Union in 2004", states science journalist Tomasz Ulanowski.

Rebecca Harms, the president of The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, has commented on the Energy Union project proposed by the then Prime Minister Donald Tusk. In an interview with EurActiv Poland, she introduces a green perspective into the discourse on the project and ponders on its impact on Eastern neighbours as well as climate change.

In the course of the EU election campaign, the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk presented his vision for a European Energy Union, which is supposed to end European dependence of Russian gas, which he identified as the essential problem of European Foreign Policy in the Ukraine-Crisis. However, it encountered immediate criticism from green politicians. "Tagesspiegel" published  an article "Polen will die EU unabhängiger machen" ("Poland want to make the EU independent) (in German), where strong and weak sides of the proposition by Tusk are thorougly analyzed. Green voices are represented by Irene Hahn-Fuhr, director of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation in Warsaw, and Rebecca Harms, Co-President of the Greens/ EFA in the European Parliament.