Reaching Our Renewable Energy Targets: What EU Governance is needed?

In the context of global climate change and energy security fears, renewable energies play a crucial role. As such, the European Union has signed up to a binding target to raise its current share of renewable energy to 20 per cent by 2020. Setting ambitious targets, however, does not immediately promise results, and many EU Member States have indicated that it will be extremely difficult for them to achieve their respective share of the target. In addition, it is clear that the European Union will eventually have to set a long-term target for renewable energy such as achieving a 100 per cent renewable electricity supply by 2050.

This begs the following questions: Does the current EU institutional support for the deployment of renewable energy suffice to go beyond the 20 per cent target by 2020 and aim at a future target of 100 per cent renewables in the electricity sector by 2050? If not, do we need a new EU governing structure for renewable energy? And if so what could such a new governing structure look like?

Focusing on the electricity sector, these and other issues will be discussed by Dr Michaele Schreyer, former EU Commissioner and co-author of a recent study outlining a proposal for a new European Community for Renewable Energy, following the examples of the European Coal and Steel Community and EURATOM.

Speaker:
Dr Michaele Schreyer, former EU Commissioner responsible for Budget

Chair:
Ralf Fuecks, Co-President, Heinrich Böll Foundation