Page 11 - GLNG Week 36

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EU selects next energy commissioner
POLICY
EUROPEAN Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen has assembled her team of 26 commissioners to run the EU’s executive branch over the next ve years.
e list of candidates are set to be con rmed by the European Parliament before assuming their roles on November 1. Replacing Slovak pol- itician Maros Sefcovic as energy commissioner will be Kadri Simson, a former Estonian minister for economic a airs and member of the Baltic state’s Centre Party.
With Simson at the helm of its energy policy, the EU is likely to double down on promoting energy security and diversi cation of supply. Estonia has been one of the most vocal oppo- nents of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which it claims will consolidate Gazprom’s dominant position in the European gas market.
Simson is likely to steer the EU towards tak- ing a more hardline position against Russia – regarding both Nord Stream 2 and ongoing gas talks between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv are currently negotiating a new transit deal to replace the current one that expires at the end of this year. While Russia is pushing for a short- er-term deal, allowing it to reduce Ukrainian transit volumes as quickly as possible, Ukraine wants a longer-term contract.
The EU is helping the two sides reach an agreement, and this will be one of Simson’s rst main challenges in o ce.
In the past, she has also called for closer energy ties between the EU and the US,
indicating that there is room for more US LNG in the continent’s energy mix. US LNG ship- ments to Europe are already on the rise, putting pressure on Russia and other pipeline suppliers.
Von der Leyen, meanwhile, has put the bat- tle against climate change at the forefront of her agenda, setting out to make Europe the rst car- bon-neutral continent in the world by 2050. e former German defence minister laid out her vision for the bloc’s climate policy in a letter to Simson this week.
Von der Leyen told Simson she wanted her focus to be “on the rapid implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation.”
“You should work closely with the member states to set out their national energy and cli- mate plans,” she wrote. “To speed up the deploy- ment of clean energy across the economy, you should promote a power system largely based on renewables, with increased interconnectiv- ity and improved energy storage. You should look at how to facilitate the smart integration of the electricity, heating, transport and industry sectors.”
Some governments and industry lobby groups have called for natural gas to play a cen- tral role in the EU’s clean energy transition. It remains to be seen whether Von der Leyen and Simson will view gas as part of the solution, in helping Europe to phase out the use of dirtier fuels such as coal, or as part of the problem, occupying a space that renewables could ll.™
Kadri Simson will be replacing Slovak politician Maros Sefcovic as energy commissioner.
US LNG shipments to Europe are already on the rise, putting pressure on Russia and other pipeline suppliers.
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