The EU is set to publish a road map on Russian energy dependence, with the intended goal of ending Europe鈥檚 reliance on Russian energy. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has hinted on multiple occasions, including in her first call with US President Donald Trump, that the commission is considering making US LNG a cornerstone of its energy security framework.
This would be a crucial mistake for Europe to make, perpetuating price volatility and dependency, whereas decarbonising heating and cooling could save the EU the equivalent of 40% of gas demand a year 鈥� and would be a more effective and durable pillar of a robust energy security strategy.
Russia鈥檚 2022 was the spark igniting an already looming energy crisis following a tight post-pandemic market whose consequences still reverberate throughout Europe. remain a top concern for citizens and businesses alike, according to and surveys.
This should be of no surprise. Gas still represents at least 35% of the energy consumption for heating in the residential sector, while around 40% of houses in the EU are still connected to the gas grid. The war painfully laid bare the security risks resulting from Europe鈥檚 dependency on fossil fuels, and gas in particular, which put citizens directly at risk of any supply disruptions.
It is a weakness that Russia has eagerly exploited as part of its hybrid warfare strategy against Europe 鈥� whether it be by threatening supply disruptions or coaxing politicians such as Slovak leader Robert Fico with the promise of gas deliveries.
It has also been a recurring trope in Russian propaganda to induce fear in Europeans about whether they will be able to properly heat their homes in winter. The urgency of policymakers in wanting to reduce dependence on Russia as an energy supplier is therefore appropriate.
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By GlobalDataResponding to Russia
Three years ago the commission quickly responded to Russia鈥檚 invasion with the REPowerEU Plan. It proposed three main pillars for reducing the dependency on Russian fossil fuels: diversifying energy supplies, increasing energy savings and accelerating the production of clean energy. At the time, that import diversification was playing an outsized role among the three.
Two years on, at first glance REpowerEU seems to have been a success. While in 2021, 43.5% of came from Russia, by late 2024 the EU managed to shrink the absolute volume of Russian fossil gas imports by three-fifths.
As it simultaneously reduced its total energy consumption by 18%, Russian gas ended up representing 18.3% of the EU鈥檚 gas imports. This is not an insignificant accomplishment. As each pillar contributed around a third towards that result, they all played a proportional role.
However, recent figures on the heating and cooling sector slightly dampen the rosy picture the commission has been putting forward on renewable energy. In the wake of REpowerEU, the commission embraced the European Heat Pump Association’s ambition of reaching 43 million new heat pump installations by 2030. The goal鈥檚 underlying presumption was that should follow the annual average of recent years, including the windfall years of 2022 and 2023.
The EU鈥檚 wrong direction
Yet the commission鈥檚 leadership did not choose to establish the right conditions in time. It even frustrated such efforts by de facto withdrawing its Heat Pump Action Plan. Meanwhile, EU member states have been deadlocked for more than three years over the revision of the .
Without an urgent reversal of course, the EU is set to miss its heat pump goal by half. That is the difference between getting rid of a volume of fossil gas imports equivalent to 120% of annual current Russian gas imports or managing to reduce it by only 60%.
Meanwhile, for other decarbonised heating and cooling solutions such as and , or clean district heating, little to no initiative was taken as part of REpowerEU to accelerate their uptake.
Likewise, the commission’s laudatory statements about how the 鈥渁ctions of citizens鈥� contributed to overachieving on the EU鈥檚 energy savings target for fossil gas contrast wryly with the EU鈥檚 energy poverty statistics.
From 2021 to 2023, the number of Europeans who are unable to heat their homes adequately grew by according to commission data, reaching a total of 47 million, or one in ten Europeans 鈥� and this is thought to be a estimate. The spike in energy poverty during the energy crisis is intimately linked to gas price volatility, which to be a long-term feature of global gas markets.
The EU鈥檚 policy choice to rely on LNG is thought to be a structural driver of volatility, meaning a significant role for LNG in EU energy policy might inherently mean . It is also at odds with the EU鈥檚 direction of travel on climate, as LNG is largely made from shale gas, which has than conventional fossil gas production.
The growing geopolitical risk
Meanwhile, the concept of supply diversification continues to enjoy strong support among EU policymakers, claiming time and resources that could be directed towards growing renewables. Some politicians are even suggesting reducing our decarbonisation ambitions.
However, switching imports from Russia to other states, including some similarly untrustworthy regimes, relocates but does not eliminate it. The EU should instead accelerate the decarbonisation of heating and cooling to increase our resilience and security.
This counts no less for the US, which already provides a fifth of EU natural gas imports. The commission has been eager to increase this volume, both as a diversification measure and as a form of appeasement in vain efforts to avoid a trade war 鈥� which seems all but inevitable, and in fact could be in the already.
The second Trump administration is already infamous for returning to the principles of his first administration, but with double the fury. So too in energy policy where the doctrine of ‘American Energy Dominance’ 鈥� meaning US leadership in global production and export of oil and natural gas production 鈥� has been by US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright.
European political leaders and policymakers would do well to take the name of this policy at face value. If the US administration conceptualises energy relations in terms of dominance, the EU should not be surprised when it tries to force your hand. If we as the EU go down this path, it will again go down the road of dependency, which it has been seen to hurt its interests in Russia鈥檚 illegal invasion of Ukraine.
The EU needs strategic energy vision
The commission can start getting the EU back on track with the acceleration of renewables in heating and cooling by developing an action plan that lays out a strategic vision of how to realise the decarbonisation of the sector through heat pumps, solar and geothermal 鈥� in collaboration with clean district heating and the associated initiatives required.
It should be geared at addressing, among other issues, the following obstacles:
- The price ratio for electricity to gas: due to their superior energy efficiency compared with fossil gas heating, heat pumps will immediately reduce energy bills once electricity is no more than twice that of gas. In , however, it still costs three or four times more. The commission鈥檚 Action Plan for Affordable Energy already announced initiatives to lower prices as such, but still missing is an EU commitment to gear the approach to energy taxation to reach this price ratio.
- Financing: the solutions for de-risking sizeable projects or schemes for supporting citizens, especially from vulnerable households, are already known in large part. The commission can both facilitate a purposeful use of public funds by member states and direct EU funds itself towards the heating and cooling transition. Establishing the financing gap for each of the cleantech solutions would create clarity for public and private actors alike.
- Data availability for geothermal: subsurface data, while existing for many places, suffers from a lack of accessibility, making it a barrier to de-risking geothermal projects. The commission should explore the possibilities of either harmonising the relevant national legislation or creating an EU-level portal to make geological data easily accessible.
In anticipation of such an action plan, member states should already follow the path laid out by the commission in its communication on affordable energy and reduce taxes down to zero for energy used for heating.
The commission, on its part, can already decide to put a halt to fossil gas investments for district heating renovation under the Modernisation Fund by no longer approving such projects, which hundreds of millions of euros in public support.
The cumulative result of these measures should be to fully accomplish the goals set out in the EU鈥檚 2023 Renewable Energy Directive of an increase of 18% in the share of renewables in heating and cooling from 2021 to 2030, as opposed to only 7.4% if the trend follows the average of the past eight years. To succeed in this would clearly mean a massive reduction in the demand for fossil gas imports.
Conclusion
The current geopolitical and climate endeavours mean clear choices must be made in EU energy policy, especially in the area of energy security. Thus far, while the efforts undertaken are not to be dismissed, the commission鈥檚 leadership has clearly yet to take up the opportunity that the decarbonisation of heating and cooling provides.
Neglecting this area in favour of supply diversification 鈥� a policy that can divest us from Russian gas but not from the negative impact of the war on the global gas market. Such a policy, which stimulates energy poverty, is undesirable both ethically, politically and policy-wise.
Doubling down on this route, especially by increasing the role of US LNG imports, would be misguided, especially considering the eagerness the US administration has shown to weaponise dependencies. Instead, the EU institutions should accelerate efforts towards the uptake of clean heating and cooling technologies in European households, to keep citizens warm and protected.
