Updated: July 21, 2015

The framework strategy project, called Energy Union, was adopted by the European Commission on February 25th, 2015 (COM2015/80). It aims to coordinate the different national energy policies in the European Union in a sustainable way in order to reduce Europe's reliance on fossil fuels and decrease the impact of climate change.

The Energy Union strategy is based on 5 principles to bring greater energy security, sustainability and competitiveness:

1. Energy Security, solidarity and trust. The European Commission calls for more transparency, solidarity and trust between the Member States. The policy makers at national level are encouraged to make choices to reduce their dependency on certain fuels, diversify energy suppliers, routes. The key areas of this strategy are to set up an internal Market and reduce the energy consumption in the European union.
   
   
2. A fully integrated European Energy market. The Energy Market must be strengthened by sufficient investments to achieve a competitive internal energy market. It aims to focus the strategy on consumers more than suppliers by considerably reducing the energy price through regulation and competition.
   
   
3. Energy efficiency contributing to moderation of demand. In 2014 the European Council has set up a target of 27% to be achieved in energy efficiency by 2030. This objective will be reviewed by 2020 to an EU level of 30%. The European Commission wants to focus on specific sectors with a high potential of energy efficiency such as transport, or building sector, through traffic management, tightening CO2 emission standards for passengers.
   
   
4. Decarbonising the economy. The climate policy is fully part of the Energy Union strategy. UE aims to become the world leader on renewable energy. The Commission encourages to invest in alternative fuels, and in bioeconomy in order to meet the 27% objective for renewable energy share consumed in the EU by 2030.
   
   
5. Research, Innovation and competitiveness. The Energy Union strategy aims to lead the European Union as the world's number one in renewable energies with clean transport, clean fossil fuel. In order to achieve this goal, proposals are to coordinate the different investments around the European Union, and to link Research to Industry sector.
   

To read more on the Energy Union:
http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/energy-union/index_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/energy-union/docs/energyunion_en.pdf

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