The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, defended this Wednesday the need to move towards an "electric future" across Europe and to double the share of electricity in the EU's energy consumption by 2040, Demócrata reports.
She did this after emphasizing that, since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, the community bloc has spent an additional 90 billion euros on fossil fuel imports.
"Our goal is to double the electricity share by 2040. With this, Europe could reduce its fossil fuel import bill by 260 billion euros a year. Ultimately, let's make the future of Europe electric. It is essential," she emphasized during her State of the Union address (SOTEU, for its acronym in English) before the plenary of the European Parliament gathered in Strasbourg (France).
The head of the community executive framed this strategy in the priority of cutting energy dependence from abroad, after stressing that Europe cannot remain a "industrial power" while bearing "structurally too high" energy prices.
In this line, she pointed out that the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have once again highlighted the fragility of the EU in the face of imported fossil fuels, whose price increase has meant an extra cost of 90 billion euros for the bloc since the beginning of the conflict.
"We have spent 90 billion euros more since the war began without adding a single molecule of energy," lamented Von der Leyen, who insisted that the solution lies in increasing energy production within Europe and decreasing exposure to imports.
To achieve this, the German politician has bet on strengthening generation from renewables and nuclear energy, along with biomethane and other technologies, under a "technologically neutral" approach that allows for greater energy sovereignty.
Von der Leyen also focused attention on the electrical networks, warning that the increase in generation capacity is not accompanied at the same pace by the necessary infrastructure to integrate it into the system.
In this sense, it has recalled that Europe installed more than 80 gigawatts of new renewable capacity last year, but there is a volume six times greater still pending connection. For this reason, it has asked to accelerate investments in networks, simplify and expedite connections, and enhance the development of energy storage.
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