Filenews 23 January 2025
The need to bring down high energy prices in Europe was underlined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her speech yesterday at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
"Energy prices in Europe are still structurally higher than in the US or China and vary significantly across the EU. So we need to bring them down while completing the gradual phasing out of Russian fossil fuels," von der Leyen said, stressing that the two goals are important and go hand in hand.
He explained that this will be achieved by diversifying our energy reserves and investing in next-generation clean energy technologies such as fusion, improved geothermal energy and solid-state batteries.
It also stressed the need to mobilise more private capital to modernise storage networks and infrastructure. "We need to remove the remaining obstacles to our Energy Union and we need to better connect our clean and low energy systems. We will put all this into a new economic energy plan that we will present in February," she said.
He went on to stress the importance of strengthening the EU's economic resilience and security as global powers compete for access to raw materials and vital supply chains.
He noted that in recent years the EU has concluded more than 35 new agreements with partners around the world, precisely to ensure its access to raw materials or clean hydrogen and to diversify some of its cleantech supply chains. He also said that in less than two months in office, the new Commission has already concluded three new partnerships, with Mercosur, Mexico and Switzerland and a few days ago negotiations started with Malaysia. "These partnerships open up new and dynamic export markets," while "guaranteeing our access to critical minerals and clean energy," von der Leyen said.
(ANA-MPA)
