The recent surge in energy prices has prompted many governments to introduce emergency measures to reduce the impact on consumers’ electricity and gas bills. In its REPowerEU Communication of 8 March 2022, the European Commission confirmed that price regulation can be used to mitigate the effect of higher energy prices on consumers’ bills. However, most government interventions and what the Commission refers to are measures to reduce the energy prices facing consumers. This type of measures weakens the incentives to save energy, and therefore runs counter to the more general energy policy objectives of sustainability and security of supply, including the reduction of the European Union’s dependence on Russia. In this Policy Brief, a more targeted approach, based on lump-sum rebate payments, which protects energy-poor consumers from unaffordable energy bills, while maintaining the incentives to save energy, is proposed.
The Brief explores pathways to promote a sustainable agricultural trade regime for the EU. We identify three challenges and propose three potential paths forward. We discuss potential implications of the [...]
The rewable energy resources within EU27 are highly dominated by wind and solar energy delivering electricity as output. As electrification is the most efficient way to deliver the energy services [...]
Manufacturing firms in the EU face the double challenge of decarbonisation and (international) competitive pressure. Based on the key findings of the 2024 EIB investment survey and considering the economic [...]
Regulation 1370/2007, as amended by the Fourth Railway Package, set the date of 25 December 2023 for the opening to competition of services subject to public service obligations. As opposed [...]
This policy brief contends that a new approach to Long Term Contracts (LTCs) in European competition policy based on new facts, new realities and a revised reasoning must be urgently [...]
In the North Seas region, a coalition of 9 countries expressed the ambition to quadruple their offshore wind capacity from 30 GW to 120 GW by 2030, and to then [...]
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