Communication: A framework strategy for a resilient Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy

The goal of a resilient Energy Union with an ambitious climate policy at its core is to give EU consumers - households and businesses - secure, sustainable, competitive and affordable energy. Achieving this goal will require a fundamental transformation of Europe's energy system.

To reach our goal, we have to move away from an economy driven by fossil fuels, an economy where energy is based on a centralised, supply-side approach and which relies on old technologies and outdated business models. We have to empower consumers through providing them with information, choice and through creating flexibility to manage demand as well as supply. We have to move away from a fragmented system characterised by uncoordinated national policies, market barriers and energy-isolated areas.

We are still leaders in innovation and renewable energy, but other parts of the world are fast catching up and we have already lost ground when it comes to some clean, low carbon technologies. Building up investment in high-tech, globally competing companies through stable policies will bring jobs and growth to Europe. New business sectors, new business models and new job profiles will emerge. Such transformational change profoundly affects the roles of all actors in the energy system, including the consumers.

Europe needs to make the right choices now. If it continues on the present path, the unavoidable challenge of shifting to a low-carbon economy will be made harder by the economic, social and environmental costs of having fragmented national energy markets. The current low oil and gas prices, while they last, should be seized as an historic opportunity – when combined with the falling cost of cleaner forms of energy, a strong EU climate policy and the emergence of new technologies – to reset the EU's energy policy in the right direction: that of an Energy Union.

See also:
- Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. Achieving the 10% electricity interconnection target - Making Europe's electricity grid fit for 2020

ESO: Background information: Energy Union: secure, sustainable, competitive, affordable energy for every European http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-energy-union-secure-sustainable-competitive-affordable-energy-for-every-european/

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