The plan, dubbed “REPowerEU,” was announced by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
REPowerEU
Von der Leyen said: “Putin's war is, as we all see, heavily disrupting the global energy market. It shows, on one hand, how dependent we are on imported fossil fuels."
She added: "But it also shows how vulnerable we are to rely on Russia for importing our fossil fuels. And therefore, we must now reduce as soon as possible our dependency on Russian fossil fuels.”
Saving energy, diversification of sources, renewable energy
Von der Leyen went on to say: “And with REPowerEU, we show that we can replace Russian fossil fuels by working on three levels: The first level is on the demand side. That is saving energy ... Then on the supply side, it is, of course, diversifying away from Russia for fossil fuels and towards other reliable trustworthy suppliers. And the most important part: accelerating the clean energy transition, so massive investment in renewable energy.”
Von der Leyen noted that EU leaders had earlier “agreed to set up a platform for the joint purchase … for gas, LNG and hydrogen.”
She announced: “As part of our REPowerEU plan, we now propose an operational way forward … with a joint procurement mechanism … This way, we can secure the energy imports we need without the competition between our member states.”
'We are mobilising close to EUR 300 billion'
Von der Leyen admitted that the plan “will of course require massive investments and reforms.”
She announced: “We are mobilising close to EUR 300 billion. Approximately EUR 72 billion will be in grants and approximately EUR 225 billion in loans.”
This will include around EUR 10 billion "in missing links for gas and LNG so that no member state is left in the cold," and up to EUR 2 billion for oil infrastructure "in view of stopping the shipment of Russian oil,” she added.
“All the rest of the financing, that is 95 percent of the overall financing, will go into speeding up and scaling up the clean energy transition,” she also said.
Wednesday was day 84 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, ec.europa.eu