Source: European Parliament
The Commission is fully aware of the recent rise of global gas prices and the challenge this imposes on EU businesses and citizens. It has already taken action to tackle this issue, such as emergency measures[1] adopted during the crisis and the revision of the Electricity Market Design[2] adopted in 2024.
High gas prices impact electricity costs, whose increase is primarily driven by Europe’s reliance on imported fossil fuels. While rolling out clean energy can help provide cheaper, homegrown power, remaining regulatory and market bottlenecks prevent industries and households from fully capturing the benefits of clean energy in their bills.
Within the frame of the Competitiveness Compass, the Commission presented the Clean Industrial Deal[3]. Under the Clean Industrial Deal, the action plan for Affordable Energy[4] sets out the measures to address the challenges of energy prices for both households and businesses.
These measures aim at fostering energy efficiency and renewable energy deployment, accelerating permitting, grids, boosting storage and reducing systems costs. These efforts will help bring down energy costs and so support industry and households.
- [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1854/oj/eng
- [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1747/oj/eng; https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/1760/oj/eng
- [3] https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/clean-industrial-deal_en
- [4] https://energy.ec.europa.eu/strategy/affordable-energy_en