by the EESC Workers’ Group

Energy cooperatives and communities are key to making the green transition a success. Yet the Commission fails to give them due prominence in its action plan for wind power in Europe which seems to ignore the mounting opposition to new wind farms.

In October, the European Commission presented the European Wind Power Action Plan (WPAP) to ensure that the clean energy transition goes hand-in-hand with industrial competitiveness and that wind power continues to be a European success story.

Generating more than a third of Europe’s renewable electricity – and over 17% of its total electricity production – wind power is a fundamental piece of net-zero electricity production for the future.

However, the Commission’s Action Plan seems to ignore the mounting opposition to new wind farms, from landscape defenders to nature conservationists, with NIMBY-like (Not in My Backyard) reactions.

Cooperatives and communities, driving a local, citizen-led process that can own the transition, are crucial for overcoming this opposition and ensuring that the benefits of this transition are widely shared. Moreover, they are also important if renewable generation is to bring a new, more decentralised system of power generation.

Instead, the Commission’s WPAP focuses only on large companies. This will harm the process, lowering acceptance and risking the transition. The Commission should reconsider the scope of its Action plan and include citizen participation as its 7th pillar.

It should ensure that bids are not exclusively price-driven and take into consideration environmental, occupational health and safety, and collective bargaining concerns, as the EESC recently recommended in its opinion on the topic.