President von der Leyen outlines key priorities for 2023 - Energy outlook for Europe

Speaking at a press conference about the outlook on EU gas supply in 2023, together with the Head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen gave an overview of EU actions to address the energy crisis so far, and the planned strands of work in 2023.

She stressed that the EU has acted successfully in withstanding Russian energy blackmail, including by putting in place REPowerEU, strategic plan to reduce EU's dependency on Russia's fossil fuels. She outlined ten key actions the EU has done in the past 10 months to provide for as much affordable, secure and clean energy for European households and businesses.

These actions include:

• diversifying away from Russian fossil fuels towards other reliable suppliers
• saving energy by reducing the gas demand by 15%
• boosting the roll-out of renewables
• speeding up the permitting process for renewables
• putting in place a minimum gas storage obligation
• ensuring solidarity via default arrangements for the supply of gas between Member States where solidarity agreements are not yet in place
• setting up a platform for the joint purchasing of gas, to increase EU's negotiation leverage
• improving our infrastructure
• introducing a legal framework that enables Member States to skim off the windfall profits of energy-producing companies
• proposing a market correction mechanism, also known as the price cap, to limit spikes in gas prices at TTF level.

“The result of all these actions is that we are safe for this winter. Russia's blackmail has failed. However, some of our proposals are still under discussion and they are essential for our energy preparedness”, von der Leyen stressed and called on the Council to adopt them swiftly, because preparing for the next winter of 2023-2024 starts now.

Looking ahead, she outlined a number of key priorities, the first one being securing enough LNG supply. “This year, we had up to 130 billion cubic metres of LNG. For this, we of course have to further intensify our outreach to our international partners”, she said.

Von der Leyen also pointed out to the importance of making ‘joint purchasing a reality' and scaling up and accelerating the deployment of renewables. She said that in 2022, there were record additions of wind and solar capacity in the EU, and that it was expected that renewable capacity will rise even further in 2023, replacing around 12 billion cubic metres of gas.

She concluded by underlining the need to invest further in the energy transition to ensure the competitiveness of European industry so that Europe continues to lead on clean tech.