REPowerEU: Joint European Action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy

Key points

• The EESC fully supports the objective of breaking away from Russian energy, to be implemented as soon as possible.
• The EESC acknowledges that Member State interventions, whether fiscal or regulatory, will be necessary in order to secure affordable prices for end consumers and to prevent energy poverty, but care must be taken not to discourage investments by energy companies in low-carbon solutions. 
• A versatile energy palette must be used in order to secure energy supply to European households and businesses. It is important to make use of the wide variety of low-carbon energy, that fit economically and ecologically within an energy system. We need to remove unnecessary administrative barriers in order to accelerate rollout of renewables. 
• The EESC highly recommend to enhance the energy infrastructure in order to accommodate the switch to the green transition and also to diversified gas sources, while at the same time ensuring the flow of energy among Member States via transmission interconnections. In these times, solidarity is needed more than ever.
• REPowerEU suggests that biomethane production be boosted to 35 bcm by 2030. While this goal is welcome, it is very ambitious, and the EESC calls for concrete measures and incentives to achieve this goal.