Friday

8th Dec 2023

EU to tackle 'energy poverty'

  • Electricity companies should not switch off electricity unannounced if consumers cannot pay the bill, the commissioner said (Photo: European Commission)

The European Commission wants to help reduce energy poverty in Europe, but will not attempt to create a common definition of the concept.

The commission is proposing a bundle of legislation related to its Energy Union project on Wednesday (30 November), which has a “quite strong focus on vulnerable consumers and on energy poverty”, according to the responsible commissioner, Maros Sefcovic.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

He said the issue of energy poverty had been raised in every EU country he has visited in the last year.

He said that some 10 percent of Europeans are struggling to pay the bills that heat and cool their homes. He also noted that electricity supplies are being cut off too quickly.

“Today, without electricity, you cannot exist,” he told journalists on Tuesday during a briefing about Wednesday's package of measures.

“When we have seen the enormous high number of disconnections over the last years, even in very, very developed Western European countries, it is quite clear that before you are disconnected there should be certain procedures.”

“There should be some kind of plan how to help those people who are facing budgetary problems and not to proceed with automatic, unannounced switching off of the electricity supplies.”

He also said more EU money would be targeted towards projects that improve the energy efficiency of buildings, citing a renovation project in a social housing apartment bloc in Paris that received investment from the so-called Juncker fund, the commission's flagship economic tool.

“With that investment, each family, each household in that building was saving more than €1,000 per year,” Sefcovic said.

He pointed out that 75 percent of buildings in the EU were inefficient: “Very often, with a small investment, you can achieve quite significant energy savings.”

However, Sefcovic noted there was no “precise definition” for an "inefficient" building, making it difficult to quantify the success of the Energy Union project.

Specific situations

The same goes for the concept of energy poverty.

“The truth is that there is not a common definition of energy poverty. The situation is different from country to country,” said Sefcovic.

He said the commission would ask member states to “define the level of energy poverty for their specific situations”, and that it would set up an energy-poverty observatory.

But he signalled that a common definition was not the most important issue.

“What we, I think, will achieve through the focus on energy poverty is the fact that this would be acknowledged on the European level that we have a problem,” he said.

“That we have to monitor it, and that we have to work jointly how we are going to tackle it. That's something what was not so obvious just a year ago.”

EU tables energy 'mega-package'

Energy Union commissioner Maros Sefcovic calls on member states to rally behind a bundle of proposals to increase energy efficiency that runs to more than 1,000 pages.

Spain's Nadia Calviño backed to be EIB's first female chief

With less than a month to go before the start of a new leadership of the European Investment Bank, the world's largest multilateral lender, the path seems finally clear for one of the candidates, Spanish finance minister Nadia Calviño.

Spain's Nadia Calviño backed to be EIB's first female chief

With less than a month to go before the start of a new leadership of the European Investment Bank, the world's largest multilateral lender, the path seems finally clear for one of the candidates, Spanish finance minister Nadia Calviño.

Analysis

Is there hope for the EU and eurozone?

While some strengths may have been overlooked recently, leading to a more pessimistic outlook on the EU and the euro area than the truly deserve, are there reasons for optimism?

Latest News

  1. EU suggests visa-bans on Israeli settlers, following US example
  2. EU ministers prepare for all-night fiscal debate
  3. Spain's Nadia Calviño backed to be EIB's first female chief
  4. Is there hope for the EU and eurozone?
  5. Crunch talks seek breakthrough on EU asylum overhaul
  6. Polish truck protest at Ukraine border disrupts war supplies
  7. 'Green' banks lend most to polluters, reveals ECB
  8. Tense EU-China summit showdown unlikely to bear fruit

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  3. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  4. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?
  5. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  6. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us