Source: European Parliament
The Commission adopted the action plan for Affordable Energy together with the Clean Industrial Deal on 26 February 2025[1]. This Action Plan presents measures to reduce energy costs for industry and households and help build a genuine Energy Union that delivers competitiveness, security, decarbonisation, and a just transition.
As outlined by the cross-border infrastructure, needs are often not matched by concrete projects, leading to undue price disparities between some regions, such as recently observed in southeast Europe.
Therefore, an indispensable element in this plan is investing in Europe’s grids, to accompany the progress towards an integrated and decarbonised energy system, reduce risks of curtailment for renewable energy and leverage the benefits of its Internal Energy Market for industry and households.
To enhance coordination across the Energy Union and strengthen the governance of the electricity market, the Commission will also set up an Energy Union Task Force.
Europe must invest more in modernising and expanding interconnections, its network of energy transmission and distribution infrastructure, accelerating investment in electricity, hydrogen and carbon dioxide transport networks as well as storage systems.
The Connecting Europe Facility for Energy has been instrumental in supporting key energy infrastructure projects of EU added value.
At the same time, existing infrastructure needs to be used efficiently. For example, a minimum of at least 70% capacity on interconnectors should be made available for cross-border electricity trading, but most Member States are still far off. Full achievement of this target would reduce price peak episodes.
- [1] https://energy.ec.europa.eu/strategy/affordable-energy_en