Dan Jorgensen, European Commissioner for Energy: “If we do not reduce energy prices, we cannot be competitive”

“It is very clear that if we cannot reduce energy prices we cannot be competitive. Competitiveness is absolutely necessary for Europe, especially now with everything that is happening in our relationship with the United States. If we cannot reduce prices, we will not be able to compete and that will damage our prosperity and put jobs at risk.” The Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jorgensen (Odense, 49 years old), begins the conversation with a very explicit summary of why it is essential for the EU to reduce energy prices . In three sentences he makes it clear that if the objective is not achieved there will be disastrous consequences in the economy, in geopolitics and in the labour market. Not at all.

A few hours ago, he presented the Plan for affordable energy at the headquarters of the European Commission, in which recommendations and initiatives are set out for this purpose, when he spoke by telephone with EL PAÍS. The European communication, the legal form that this initiative takes, includes various pieces of advice to the Member States that Brussels has been giving for years, such as the need to promote transport networks (gas pipelines, hydro pipelines, high-voltage networks) to create a true single energy market that will lower prices and thus facilitate competition. Why are the capitals now going to follow this request? “If we do not significantly expand our networks and interconnect more, we will not be able to make the ecological transition that we need nor will we be able to lower prices as we want. We will also not be able to stop depending on fossil fuels from abroad. So we really have no choice. We have to expand our networks,” he answers.

Before coming to Brussels, Jorgensen was a minister in his country. He was responsible for Development Cooperation and Climate Policy. Now he is in charge of a complicated portfolio that many member states wanted but which Denmark finally won for this social democrat who now, when he sees the current prices of fuels such as gas, doubts that the markets are completely efficient. “We need more transparency and control in the gas market. The Commission has set up a working group that is analysing the market right now. In addition, we are very aware that the various regulatory oversight mechanisms and institutions need to be more vigorous in scrutiny, because today the price is so high that we are not sure that they really reflect the difference between supply and demand, which is what they should [reflect].”

Transparency in the markets and a single energy market are two of the proposals put forward by the Commission to reduce prices, but there are more. Brussels is looking at tax collection, taxes, surcharges and fees charged by administrations that make consumption more expensive for families and companies. “Many countries have great potential to reduce prices by lowering rates, especially for electricity. If this is done, there will be a higher rate of electrification, which also leads to greater energy efficiency, which in turn leads to lower prices,” says the commissioner.

In the obsession with lowering prices, there is only one exception: Russia. “We continue to import Russian gas, which is totally unacceptable. In fact, what we are doing when we buy it is indirectly financing Putin’s war against Ukraine.” Although for Jorgensen there are solutions that do not have to involve paying more expensive fuel: “We have to look for alternatives. Now it is clear that the best thing we can do is use less gas.”

However, he admits, it is not easy to do so immediately: “In the short term we will still need gas. And that also means we need to look at other possibilities. Some are not just liquefied natural gas (LNG), we can also get gas from Norway via pipelines, for example, and from other places in the world. But the LNG market will probably have to become more diversified than it is today and the United States is certainly a possible source.” And isn’t that more expensive? “Prices are set on the market regardless of where it comes from. [...] What we do say is that we will not buy Russian gas in the future,” he concludes.