As EU leaders head to Brussels for this month’s summit, they must confront head-on the failures that have hamstrung progress toward energy union. Whereas energy packages, like regulations or sanctions, have a limited shelf life, a consolidated energy market does not.
MADRID – Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, the European Union’s frantic efforts to adapt its energy markets and infrastructure to new geopolitical realities have been an object of fascination in media and policy circles alike. Not a day has passed, it seems, without a flurry of commentaries and discussions about the dilemmas Europe faces. Yet, after nearly ten months, the EU is nowhere near forging a coherent energy policy. The just-completed meeting of the EU’s Extraordinary Energy Council was telling: member states’ energy ministers wrangled over common gas cap prices and effectively kicked the can down the road.
MADRID – Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, the European Union’s frantic efforts to adapt its energy markets and infrastructure to new geopolitical realities have been an object of fascination in media and policy circles alike. Not a day has passed, it seems, without a flurry of commentaries and discussions about the dilemmas Europe faces. Yet, after nearly ten months, the EU is nowhere near forging a coherent energy policy. The just-completed meeting of the EU’s Extraordinary Energy Council was telling: member states’ energy ministers wrangled over common gas cap prices and effectively kicked the can down the road.