The current
energy situation is alarming, and the EU is responding by taking a range of
measures to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and its dependence
on gas supplies from Russia. As the Czech Republic is very concerned about this
topic, CEBRE in cooperation with the European Commission organized a debate
"REPowerEU: the cure for dependence on Russian energy?". The debate
clarified the positions of the various stakeholders, which included
representatives of the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council, and
Czech entities such as the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the business
community. The Green Deal addresses the "Fit for 55" package, where
energy plays a key role. The package, which was supposed to focus on the energy
situation in general, has been completely disrupted by the Russian military
aggression against Ukraine, and its economics situation will have a huge impact
on Fit for 55. Just to give you an idea, the price of gas has risen 4.5 times
from last year, an increase of 350% since the beginning of last year.
Therefore, there is now a strong focus on reducing imports and dependence on
fossil fuels, primarily from Russia, which is the largest gas supplier to the
EU.
The plan that
the EU is preparing intends to focus on 6 priority areas, where the European
Commission representative mentioned, for example, the completion of the update
of Member States' contingency plans and the preparation for the fact that the
situation could change rapidly from one day to the next and gas from Russia
could be cut off completely and increasing diversification of supply by
actively engaging in the EU Energy Platform and using it to aggregate demand
needs and enhanced monitoring and coordination through the Gas Coordination
Group. Furthermore, a demand reduction plan should be presented, which should,
among other things, set criteria for prioritizing certain industries and
propose possible restrictions on gas prices at the EU level. According to the
European Parliament representative Mr. Niedermayer: 'Europe needs to generate
more electricity independently, sustainably, and as quickly as possible.
Furthermore, it is also necessary to reduce the demand for energy so that we do
not have to import energy that is not needed to be consumed. We need to act
very quickly and must proceed in solidarity so that we will not have, on the
one side, countries that will not have to restrict their economy in any way
and, on the other side, countries in which gas will only reach protected
customers." The issue of energy security is not a problem for all EU
countries, but unfortunately, the Czech Republic is one of the countries that
will be rapidly affected. Countries that do not need to be so concerned are,
for example, the Scandinavian countries, which have a high proportion of
hydroelectric power plants and renewable sources. Photovoltaic energy could
also help, for example, Poland has increased the amount of
photovoltaic and wind power, and the same could be possible within the Czech
Republic. Finally, mention was made of the national energy plan, which says
that by 2030 we should increase the share of renewable sources in electricity
production to 20% of the total amount in the Czech Republic.
Published by a team of CzechTrade foreign office in Belgium
Source: Euractiv.cz