Energy

A competitive, reliable and sustainable energy sector is essential for an economy, and this has been put under the spotlight in recent years by a number of issues, including the volatility in oil prices, interruptions to energy supply from non-member countries, blackouts aggravated by inefficient connections between national electricity networks, and the difficulties of market access for suppliers in relation to gas and electricity markets. These issues have pushed energy towards the top of national and European political agendas.

In January 2007 the European Commission adopted a communication (COM(2007) 1) proposing an energy policy for Europe, with the goal to combat climate change and boost the EU’s energy security and competitiveness. This set out the need for the EU to draw up a new energy path towards a more secure, sustainable and low-carbon economy, for the benefit of all users. One aim is to give energy users greater choice, and another is to spur investment in energy infrastructure. Based on the European Commission’s proposal, in March 2007 the Council endorsed the following targets:

• reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 % (compared with 1990 levels) by 2020;
•  improving energy efficiency by 20 % by 2020;
• raising the share of renewable energy to 20 % by 2020; 
•  increasing the level of biofuels in transport fuel to 10 % by 2020.

The use of renewable energy sources is seen as a key element in energy policy, reducing the dependence on fuel from nonmember countries, reducing emissions from carbon sources, and decoupling energy costs from oil prices. The second key element is constraining demand, by promoting energy efficiency both within the energy sector itself and at end-use.

In order to meet the increasing requirements of policy makers for energy monitoring, Eurostat has developed a coherent and harmonised system of energy statistics. Annual data collection covers the 27 Member States of the EU, the candidate countries of Croatia and Turkey, and the European Economic Area countries of Iceland and Norway; time-series run back to 1985 for some countries, but are more generally available from 1990.