Citizens’ Energy Package: citizens’ engagement, energy communities and prosumerism

Background

The European Commission has asked the EESC to draw up an opinion to single out potential obstacles to prosumerism or to the creation of energy communities while outlining the essential conditions to create an effective framework to support citizens’ engagement.

The Commission is expected to adopt a Citizens’ Energy Package aimed at increasing people’ participation in the energy transition and enhancing the social dimension of the Energy Union. Involving consumers is key to making progress in the energy transition and to fighting energy poverty, but this requires guidance for consumers and their seamless integration into the common energy market.

The Committee has been stressing for years that it is vital to place people at the heart of the energy transition. With its annual energy poverty conferences, the EESC has pointed out that it was essential to protect vulnerable citizens and guarantee access to affordable energy. In addition, the Committee has also called for people’s active involvement in the development of the energy system through prosumerism and energy communities. These initiatives make it possible to own policies, improve efficiency, change behaviours, manage locally produced clean energy and so maintain control over prices.

Key points

The EESC:

• stresses that the Commission has so far failed to put citizens at the heart of the Energy Union. It thus welcomes the Citizens’ Energy Package (CEP) as a way to engage people and communities, but underlines that the CEP must guarantee citizens’ full involvement in building a fair, sustainable, and secure energy system. It also calls for stronger action against energy poverty, with a clear definition and local, data-driven identification of affected households.
• highlights that the CEP should prioritise financing energy communities and give clear guidance on key concepts regarding community energy, which are now understood very differently across Member States. Funding should be subject to minimal standards being met in the areas of youth engagement, fostering energy literacy and developing green skills.

• in order to empower citizens and establish of the prerequisites for mitigating energy poverty, recommends that the EU: 1) immediately impose an EU-wide ban on disconnection of households; 2) move away from the merit order system, which links electricity prices to gas prices; 3) adjust the policy language by referring to ‘citizens’, instead of ‘consumers’, in relation to energy; 4) set up a European energy ombudsperson.

   

Additional information

Section: Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society (TEN)

Opinion number: TEN/854

Opinion type: Exploratory

Rapporteur: Corina Murafa Benga (Group III - Romania)

Date of adoption by section: 4 September 2025

Result of the vote: 39 in favour, 6 against, 7 abstentions

Date of adoption in plenary: 17-18 September 2025

Result of the vote: 97 in favour, 3 against, 3 abstentions

Contact

Marco Pezzani

Press Officer

Tel.: +32 2 546 9793 | Mob: +32 470 881 903

E-mail: marco.pezzani@eesc.europa.eu

Francesco Napolitano

Administrator

Tel.: +32 546 8921

E-mail: francesco.napolitano@eesc.europa.eu