EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has warned there is no financial “workaround” for surging energy prices and called for faster investment in renewables, electrification and nuclear power.
Hoekstra said in an interview with the Financial Times that Europe faced “mind-boggling” price rises and was “overburdened with debt”, limiting governments’ ability to shield consumers.
He told the Financial Times the only durable response was to cut reliance on imported fossil fuels through a rapid expansion of clean energy and infrastructure.
“The only way forward is more electrification, more nuclear, more solar, more wind, more battery capacity, more interconnectors in the European Union, and all of it with much more speed,” said Wopke Hoekstra, European commissioner for climate action.
The EU is grappling with a €22bn increase in fossil fuel import costs since the start of the Middle East conflict.
“Citizens are still being confronted with a price of a raw material that has gone up dramatically. That is something [for which] there is no workaround,” Hoekstra told the FT.
The European Commission is preparing to recommend widespread electrification measures and reforms to grid charges and electricity taxation to curb costs and fossil fuel dependence.
The Financial Times said draft proposals include lowering electricity transport costs and ensuring power is taxed below fossil fuels.
Hoekstra said member states have some scope for short-term support measures but warned weak public finances constrain large-scale intervention.
He also cautioned that proposals for an EU-wide windfall tax on energy companies are legally and economically complex.
“The first analyses show it’s legally complicated [and] has significant economic side-effects . . . it’s a domain where we have to tread very, very carefully,” he said.
Hoekstra welcomed growing backing for renewables and nuclear energy, including from previously sceptical countries.
“It’s quite hard to ignore the huge ramifications of the dependency that we have, right? Regardless of whether you’re leftwing or rightwing or whether you are in the north or the south of Europe,” he said.