Strategic Agenda 2024-2029 – Making Europe an investment destination with Green Deal 2.0. powered by electrification
To the attention of Heads of State and Government
Brussels, 18 June 2024
Dear EU Leaders,
The world today looks far different than it did five years ago: global competition is back and has gone into hyperdrive, war returned to our continent and climate change destroys our environment at a worrying pace. While a majority of Europeans voted for a continuity agenda earlier this month, the results also show that social acceptance cannot be taken for granted.
Such turbulent times can only be navigated with steady hands and visionary leadership.
The unprecedented energy shock showed us that we can contain the worst effects and overcome the crisis if we work together and integrate our markets further. Your determination to strengthen Europe’s long-term competitiveness and prosperity can only succeed if it is underpinned by making the right investments in our energy security, with homegrown and clean electricity at its core. This means we must stay on the course laid out by the Green Deal and bolstered by REPowerEU.
Electrification is the most cost-effective pathway. Its superior energy efficiency can reduce consumption and our reliance on fossil fuels, enabling us to decarbonise while saving on the cost of fuel. We stand to reduce fossil fuel imports from €451 billion today to €142 billion between 2040-2050.
We can succeed only if our economy and society electrify at pace. As we pour capital into new power generation capacity and grid infrastructure, it is critical that electricity consumption grows at the same rate to optimize individual costs for consumers. The potential for electrification is huge, but today it is stagnating at around 23% of final energy demand. We need to steadily increase it to 35% by the end of this decade and, by 2050, homegrown electricity is projected to fuel 50-60% of our activities.
We call on you, EU Leaders, to reconfirm support for the Green Deal goals and complement them with a firm show of commitment to accelerate electrification in the Strategic Agenda for 2024-2029.