‘Energy is the single biggest issue facing Jean-Claude Juncker,’ remarked a seasoned Eurocrat to me earlier this week. Europe’s energy infrastructure is decrepit and insular. Rates of cross-border interconnection, for example, remain very low – at just 8 per cent of their production capacity on average across the union according to the FT.
The Commission’s 2030 energy package aims to raise the average rate of interconnection to 15 per cent — part of a string of targets designed to complete the single market in energy. Alas, it’s going to take more than a target or two. The level of investment required is enormous (more than 1 trillion euros by the Commission’s estimate, of which only 5.8bn has been found for 2014-2020). The Commission has identified nearly 250 vital energy infrastructure projects, many of which lie in eastern and central Europe — where the network retains a Soviet flavour, with all the difficulties which that entails.
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