′Europe 2020′ towards Energy Efficiency

The success of the Europe 2020 strategy crucially depends on the ability of EU member States to play their part in implementing the necessary reforms to increase research investment and employment levels as well as cooperating with the European Commission on seven flagship initiatives.

The seven flagships cover all policy areas that one can imagine such as the digital economy, youth, innovation, resource efficiency, industrial policy, anti-poverty policy etc. However the most pressing issue for European economy today is energy efficiency.

It is easy to be pessimistic since our continent is lacking the strong EU government that an economic bloc should have. The least we could say is that despite a still weak treaty-basis the EU is not leaning back only making up the sum total of 27 completely contradictory national policies and attempts to fight a global crisis. The Europe2020 Strategy is a holistic approach to keep Europe competitive in a globalized economy and an outline of how Europe can benefit from coordination at EU level. The EU is not intervening in national policy areas but explores the benefit of its overview position to make sound recommendations that should help individual member states to align their efforts and act in a more concerted way. Following the financial crisis, Europe needs more than ever before strong economic growth and high levels of employment to sustain its levels of social protection especially now its facing an ageing population. In comparison to the past this strategy is a more flexible one avoiding too ambitious targets and not intervening with the highly political Stability and Growth Pact.

Learning from the weaknesses of the Lisbon Agenda, the EU came up with plans for stronger governance through regular and transparent monitoring and leadership at the highest political level – the European Council. This companionship of the EU’s leaders will be responsible for steering the strategy, while the European Commission will monitor the situation each year on the basis of a set of indicators assessing country reports and convergence programmes measuring overall progress towards the 2020 targets. The Council of Ministers will be responsible for peer review among the national ministers and the European Parliament will be involved as co-legislator for the legislative proposals that will be part of the flagship initiatives but also as a driving political force for mobilizing citizens and national parliaments. New financing instruments to boost innovation and entrepreneurship will be developed to enable business to play their role with the help of both the European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund.

The Lisbon Agenda of 2000 that was to make Europe ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’ by 2010 failed and the EU-bloc has become just one of the economic poles in a multi-polar galaxy. So what is it this time? The kind of growth the Europe2020 Strategy is aiming for is of a different kind. Europe2020 has not drafted a wish list for the future but has well analyzed what Europe can still invest in and be good at in comparison with other parts of the world. The new ambition is on smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The strategy is the recipe and the seven flagships provide for the ingredients to make the European economy one that is future-proof. Among these elements we find targets as raising skills levels and reinforcing education and life-long learning, boosting research and innovation, spurring the rollout of smart networks and the digital economy, helping industry modernize and promoting greater energy and resource efficiency. Coming back to that last point, what coal and steel were for the early European community, energy policy is for the EU today.

Energy is everything and everything needs energy, that’s why smart policy and sustainable action on energy efficiency is one of the best examples to come to inclusive growth. The EU’s industrial policy should focus on energy efficiency with both a pull and a push side to it. Europe’s industries are the roots of the European economy and are essential for smart and sustainable growth across all sectors and their value-chains as they provide the vital materials and sustainable products for our domestic markets as well as for international export. These industries should not be forced out but helped to be as energy efficient as technologically possible. Policy that sets too ambitious targets on industry will lead to de-industrialization of Europe with job-losses and leakage of all imaginable potential. We should always test our policies within its global perspective and measure its impact. At the other side, energy efficiency measures should be enforced so it will contribute to achieving security of energy supply and sustainability. A smart energy efficiency policy should promote the uptake of existing energy-performance products. Our society will need to develop a taste and develop a demand for energy efficient products and investment in sustainable solutions that pays back the industrial efforts done to provide for these sustainable goods after smart and intensive research and development. We shouldn’t be mistaken, high-tech research & development and its high-level jobs do not remain here in Europe when its manufacturing is delocalized to cheap labour countries where energy and other resources can still be spilled. Europe can indeed improve its competitiveness and become future-proof if it seriously revises its industrial policy and puts its energy policy’s focus on energy efficiency. Remember, the most efficient energy is saved energy!

* Niels Schreuder is an EU observer in Brussels and secretary-general Belgian section of the Association of European Journalists (AEJ)