Renewables ‘the way to go’, Austrian-Spanish alliance signals to new Commission

At a breakfast meeting before Thursday’s (30 May) Energy Council, the EU’s pro-renewables countries agreed to push the incoming Commission for more policies favouring their technology.

“It is quite clear that the main task and the main role in the energy system of the future will be played by renewables,” stressed Leonore Gewessler, Austria’s energy minister, as she shuttled from the breakfast get-together to the wider meeting of all EU energy ministers. 

In Europe, two informal blocs are waging a quiet struggle: the pro-renewables group and the pro-nuclear alliance, who each count at least 13 countries. Founded by Austria and France, respectively, the groups insist on their own energy vision for the EU.

2023 saw key gains for the nuclear alliance, having won recognition for their chosen technology in the EU’s core industrial policy law, the Net-Zero Industrial Act, while the EU electricity market reform empowered Paris to subsidise their ageing reactors, too.

With the cards in Brussels are due for a shuffle following the EU election on 6-9 June, the renewables alliance is looking for ground.

“The friends of renewables are working on our priorities for the next Commission,” Gewessler confirmed. A document is forthcoming, Euractiv understands.

Given that current Commission predictions forecast an 80% share for renewables by 2040, the goal should be to “create positive and accelerating conditions.” 

Renewables provide an “independent, resilient, climate-friendly and cheap” energy system which made them the “way to go,” Gewessler emphasised. 

Spain’s Energy Minister Teresa Ribera, who co-chaired the renewables gathering on Thursday, similarly stressed that “a commitment to strategic autonomy in energy matters requires greater investment in renewable energies”. 

The Spanish politician has expressed her ambition to assume the powerful energy and climate portfolio in the next Commission, and is the frontrunner for the Spanish centre-left PSOE in the EU elections.

The Czech-French-led nuclear alliance did not hold a meeting that day, although the group has traditionally sought to match meetings of their renewable rivals with meetings of their own.

Instead, a two-day meeting of the EU’s small modular reactor (SMR) alliance took place, bringing together Commission, industry and EU countries with the aim to have the first novel reactor running in Europe in the 2030s.

Approval of EU renewables law delayed as France 'plays hardball' on nuclear

Formal approval of the EU’s renewable energy directive has been postponed following a last-minute objection by Paris, which wants further “guarantees” on low-carbon hydrogen derived from nuclear power.

[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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