“It is necessary to reduce and eliminate the energy dependence of Russia, but the measures that are taken must be based on the analysis of the impact of this decision and agreed between all the countries of the European Union,” said Nicolás González Casares, Eurodiputa Geopolitics and industrial and commercial policies in China, the United States and the European Union.
According to the Europarliamentary “in 2022, the EU imported 40% of the Russian gas; today is less than 19 or 18%, due, among other reasons, to the greater penetration of renewable energy, the transition, and energy efficiency, but also thanks to the diversification and work of the European Union to be less dependent on Russia”.
Protect European competitiveness
In the opinion of Gonzalez Casares “Europe is doing its duties in order to reduce its climatic footprint and to fulfill its multilateral commitments and, fundamentally, for their own interest. And along the way have already traveled so far, we are aware that the economic consequences of the dependence of imported hydrocarbons will generate greater problems.”
To try to minimize these difficulties, the solution as the MEP is not to change one supplier for another, “the only way to gain autonomy and competitiveness, is to reduce fossil fuel dependence because Europeans do not have them. However, we have other native potentials, such as renewable energies. And in this sense, Spain has the unique opportunity to lead the renewable generation, we should not leave pass, ”said the Eurodiputa.
González Casares has also deepened the idea that the energy transition must be fair. “We must seek the public acceptance of the transition. In this process there are many citizens who perceive risks, so it is necessary to boost fair transition policies. Because, in addition, the most affected by climate change and energy transition policies are precisely the ones who have less.”
Finally, Gonzalez Casares valued the energy transition process of the indispensable paper of the biomethane, since its development would allow protecting the competitiveness of the European industry from large world producers, such as China. “The decarbonization of the EU goes through electrification, but not everything is electrifiable,” he said.
For its part, Samantha Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative in Brookings Institution in relation to the risk for energy transition by European rivalry with China and the US in regard to industrial and commercial policies, has been concerned about political polarization in its country and what it can lead to for this transition.
In their opinion, “the administrations will change, but companies will continue to do what they think is better for the future and, in this sense, I consider that Europe is better positioned than the US is, because we have the idea that we are in a competence of power with China already the best we are, but that does not mean that we cannot collaborate in something, we do not have to compete in everything.”
For Gross, “the Trump administration wants to redesign manufacturing, but wants to do it with totally different tools. They see that the way to do it is to exclude products from other countries and this will not go well. We are isolating ourselves from our commercial partners.”
In her speech, the researcher at the International Institute for Peace Studies of Stockholm (Sipri), Jiayi Zhou, highlighted the importance of dimensioning industrial policy because it is related to geoeconomy and green transition. “For more than a decade, China has been very strategic with the sectors that it supports and has done so with a very long term.” Zhou has also highlighted the way of producing in China “we are not simply talking about manufacturing products but about carrying out a true vertical integration of all supply chains.”
Pedro Linares, a professor at the Pontifical University Comillas Icai-iit and director of Economics for Energy, focused his analysis from a European perspective: “I do not see that the energy transition is threatened. But I do believe that we need an industrial policy because the way we see in Europe the transition is that we are already fulfilling in many aspects and so it is, but we need to be more efficient when it comes to showing the benefits of the transition for the citizenship.”