| European Commissioner for Energy | |
|---|---|
| Appointer | President of the European Commission |
| Term length | Five years |
| Inaugural holder | Günther Oettinger |
| Formation | 1958 |
| Website | European Commission |
The European Commissioner for Energy is a member of the European Commission. The current Commissioner is Kadri Simson, in office since 1 December 2019.
The Commissioner holds responsibility for the European Union's energy policy as well as nuclear issues (Euratom). It was previously a backwater in the commission but has now become sought-after as the European energy policy has been developed. The Commissioner for Energy has to deal with ongoing gas disputes between Russia and Ukraine which threaten European supplies, reduce dependence on Russian energy and reduce carbon emissions. [1]
The Directorate-General serving this Commissioner is the Directorate-General for Energy, which was combined with Transport prior to 2010.
A member of the centre-right People's Party, Arias served as Minister for Agriculture, Food and Environment in the Spanish Government from 2011 until 2014, before being selected to head his Party List in the European Parliamentary elections. [2]
Arias Cañete was nominated as EU Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action in the Juncker Commission and took office on 1 November 2014. [3]
Günther Oettinger was appointed as the new Energy Commissioner in February 2010. However he was criticised for corruption and avoidance of EU law in his home state. [4] His language skills have also been criticised [5] and his nomination was met with confusion in Brussels. [6]
During his hearing with the European Parliament, Piebalgs stressed the importance of the environment in energy policy and was cautious of nuclear power. He received strong backing from the Parliament. He outlined his priorities as; [7]
The European Union is an active supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, which it signed alongside its member-states. In March 2007 the Union committed itself to cut CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020. [8] There is also a desire to reduce dependency on Russian energy supplies following the disputes between Russia and Belarus and Ukraine. [9] In April 2007 five southern European countries signed a deal to build an oil pipeline (the Pan-European Oil Pipeline) from the Black Sea to Italy which will help diversify energy sources. [10]
| # | Name | Country | Period | Commission | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Wilhelm Haferkamp |  West Germany | 1967–1970 | Rey Commission |
| 2 | 1970–1972 | Malfatti Commission | |||
| 3 | 1972–1973 | Mansholt Commission | |||
| 4 | Henri François Simonet |  Belgium | 1973–1977 | Ortoli Commission | |
| 5 |  | Guido Brunner | West Germany | 1977–1981 | Jenkins Commission |
| 6 |  | Étienne Davignon | Belgium | 1981–1985 | Thorn Commission |
| 7 | Nicolas Mosar |  Luxembourg | 1985–1989 | Delors Commission I | |
| 8 | António Cardoso e Cunha |  Portugal | 1989–1993 | Delors Commission II | |
| 9 |  | Marcelino Oreja |  Spain | 1993–1994 | Delors Commission III |
| 10 |  | Abel Matutes | Spain | 1994–1995 | Delors Commission III |
| 11 |  | Christos Papoutsis |  Greece | 1995–1999 | Santer Commission |
| 12 |  | Loyola de Palacio | Spain | 1999–2004 | Prodi Commission |
| 13 |  | Andris Piebalgs |  Latvia | 2004–2010 | Barroso Commission I |
| 14 |  | Günther Oettinger | Germany | 2010–2014 | Barroso Commission II |
| 15 |  | Miguel Arias Cañete | Spain | 2014–2019 | Juncker Commission |
| 16 |  | Kadri Simson |  Estonia | 2019–onwards | von der Leyen Commission |
PJSC Gazprom is a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. As of 2019, with sales over $120 billion, it was, until 2023, ranked as the largest publicly listed natural gas company in the world and the largest company in Russia by revenue. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Gazprom was ranked as the 32nd largest public company in the world. The Gazprom name is a contraction of the Russian words gazovaya promyshlennost. In January 2022, Gazprom displaced Sberbank from the first place in the list of the largest companies in Russia by market capitalization. In 2022, the company's revenue amounted to 8 trillion rubles. In 2023, the company is delisted from international markets, and continues substantial constriction in its operational results.
The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP) is the chief co-ordinator and representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) within the European Union (EU). The position is currently held by Josep Borrell Fontelles.
Andris Piebalgs is a Latvian politician and diplomat who served as European Commissioner for Development at the European Commission from 2010 until 2014. Between 2004 and 2009 he served as Commissioner for Energy. Between 4 June 2016 and 19 August 2017, he served as the leader of the Unity party.
The Druzhba pipeline ; also has been referred to as the Friendship Pipeline and the Comecon Pipeline) is one of the world's longest oil pipelines and one of the largest oil pipeline networks in the world. It began operation in 1964 and remains in operation today. It carries oil some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) from the eastern part of European Russia to points in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. The network also branches out into numerous smaller pipelines to deliver its product throughout Eastern Europe and beyond.
Günther Hermann Oettinger is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources from 2017 to 2019, as European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society from 2014 to 2016 and as European Commissioner for Energy from 2010 to 2014.
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen is a German physician and politician serving as the 13th president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding successive positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet, most recently as federal minister of defence. Von der Leyen is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its EU affiliated group, the European People's Party (EPP).
The Russia–Ukraine gas disputes refer to a number of disputes between Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrayiny and Russian gas supplier Gazprom over natural gas supplies, prices, and debts. These disputes have grown beyond simple business disputes into transnational political issues—involving political leaders from several countries—that threaten natural gas supplies in numerous European countries dependent on natural gas imports from Russian suppliers, which are transported through Ukraine. Russia provides approximately a quarter of the natural gas consumed in the European Union; approximately 80% of those exports travel through pipelines across Ukrainian soil prior to arriving in the EU.
Naftogaz of Ukraine is the largest national oil and gas company of Ukraine. It is a state-owned company subordinated to the Government of Ukraine. The vertical-integrated company carries out a complete cycle of exploration operations and development of deposits, operating and exploratory drilling, extraction, transportation, and refinement of natural gas and crude oil, supply of natural and liquefied gas to consumers.
The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline is a proposed subsea pipeline between Türkmenbaşy in Turkmenistan, and Baku in Azerbaijan. According to some proposals it would also include a connection between the Tengiz Field in Kazakhstan, the Sangachal Terminal in Baku, and Türkmenbaşy. The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline project would transport natural gas from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to European Union member countries, circumventing both Russia and Iran. It would do this by feeding the Southern Gas Corridor. This project attracts significant interest since it would connect vast Turkmen gas resources to major consumers Turkey and Europe.
The Russia–Belarus energy dispute began when Russian state-owned gas supplier Gazprom demanded an increase in gas prices paid by Belarus, a country which has been closely allied with Moscow and forms a loose union state with Russia. It escalated on 8 January 2007, when the Russian state-owned pipeline company Transneft stopped pumping oil into the Druzhba pipeline which runs through Belarus because Belarus was siphoning the oil off the pipe without mutual agreement. On 10 January, Transneft resumed oil exports through the pipeline after Belarus ended the tariff that sparked the shutdown, despite differing messages from the parties on the state of negotiations.
The energy policy of the European Union focuses on energy security, sustainability, and integrating the energy markets of member states. An increasingly important part of it is climate policy. A key energy policy adopted in 2009 is the 20/20/20 objectives, binding for all EU Member States. The target involved increasing the share of renewable energy in its final energy use to 20%, reduce greenhouse gases by 20% and increase energy efficiency by 20%. After this target was met, new targets for 2030 were set at a 55% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as part of the European Green Deal. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU's energy policy turned more towards energy security in their REPowerEU policy package, which boosts both renewable deployment and fossil fuel infrastructure for alternative suppliers.
Russia's energy policy is presented in the government's Energy Strategy document, first approved in 2000, which sets out the government's policy to 2020. The Energy Strategy outlines several key priorities: increased energy efficiency, reducing the impact on the environment, sustainable development, energy development and technological development, as well as improved effectiveness and competitiveness. Russia's greenhouse gas emissions are large because of its energy policy. Russia is rich in natural energy resources and is one of the world's energy superpowers. Russia is the world's leading net energy exporter, and was a major supplier to the European Union until the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia has signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. Numerous scholars posit that Russia uses its energy exports as a foreign policy instrument towards other countries.
The Republic of Azerbaijan and the European Union (EU) have maintained a positive relationship through the years and have become more closely linked since 1991. Azerbaijan is currently part of the European Neighborhood Policy, the Eastern Partnership and the Council of Europe. The EU is the largest foreign grant donor to and investor in Azerbaijan, both in the government sector and civil society, making available over 600 million EURO of bilateral EU assistance since 1992.
Miguel Arias Cañete is a Spanish politician who served as European Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action in the Juncker Commission from 2014 to 2019.
Russia supplies a significant volume of fossil fuels to other European countries. In 2021, it was the largest exporter of oil and natural gas to the European Union, (90%) and 40% of gas consumed in the EU came from Russia.
The history of the European Union from 2004 to the present is the current timeline of the European Union. It is a period of significant upheaval and reform following the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. The EU has taken on ten new members, eight of which were initially much poorer than the EU average, and took in a further two in 2007 with many more on the way. It created the euro a few years before and had to expand this, and the Schengen Area to its new members. However this was overshadowed by the late-2000s recession and damaging disputes over the European Constitution and its successor, the Treaty of Lisbon. Throughout this period, the European People's Party has been the largest group in the European Parliament and provides every President of the European Commission.
Mariya Ivanova Gabriel is a Bulgarian politician and a member of the GERB party, serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria and Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2023. She served as European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth between December 2019 and May 2023 and as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2017.
The Juncker Commission was the European Commission in office from 1 November 2014 to 30 November 2019. Its president was Jean-Claude Juncker, who presided over 27 other commissioners. In July 2014, Juncker was officially elected to succeed José Manuel Barroso, who completed his second five-year term in that year.
A global energy crisis began in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, with much of the globe facing shortages and increased prices in oil, gas and electricity markets. The crisis was caused by a variety of economic factors, including the rapid post-pandemic economic rebound that outpaced energy supply, and escalated into a widespread global energy crisis following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The price of natural gas reached record highs, and as a result, so did electricity in some markets. Oil prices hit their highest level since 2008.
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