Insight
Towards a decarbonised energy system in a larger EU by Elisabetta Cornago, 16 July 2025 To join the EU, candidate countries have to meet a range of regulatory requirements, including liberalising their energy markets and setting up the policy architecture to decarbonise the energy system. This is a challenge in countries that are still largely reliant on fossil fuels. The energy crisis following Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine has hastened the partial integration of EU candidate countries into the EU energy market. But their alignment with EU energy policy is progressing slowly – though with some important differences. It is in the mutual interest of both current member-states and candidate countries to accelerate the latter’s integration into the energy union: a larger electricity market can draw upon more energy generators, lowering EU average prices, and enhance energy security. The EU has an interest in strengthening its support for energy policy progress in its neighbourhood. The Commission should help governments in candidate countries monitor and manage the price impact of a shift to liberalised energy markets, to avoid spikes in energy poverty. The energy crisis that arose out of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine has highlighted the need for the EU to strengthen its energy security. This has increased awareness of the alignment between European efforts to decarbonise its energy mix and to enhance energy security: renewable energy simultaneously cuts emissions and reduces dependence on imported fossil fuels. As long as the EU energy system continues to rely on imported natural gas and oil, energy supply diversification will remain a priority, and a particularly urgent one among member-states that were still highly reliant on Russian gas and oil when the war broke out. Furthermore, the energy crunch has shown that the energy union is still fragmented: electricity interconnections between markets are limited and overloaded, which leads to diverging prices across Europe and can make some regions vulnerable to energy shocks.
CER INSIGHT: TOWARDS A DECARBONISED ENERGY SYSTEM IN A LARGER EU 16 JULY 2025
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