Central and Eastern Europe’s climate plans lack ambition, say environmental NGOs

None of the Central and Eastern European countries met Sunday’s 30 June deadline for submitting their final National Energy and Climate Change Plan (NECPs) to the European Commission. Environmental NGOs previously denounced their first decarbonisation draft plans, as lacking ambition.

Final NECPs from member states are based upon initial draft plans submitted in 2023 and are supposed to incorporate the Commission’s feedback on these first versions.

The Commission’s collective assessment of all 27 draft NECPs, published in December 2023, is that “on fossil fuel subsidies, a collective effort by member states is necessary to set a clear and credible timeline for their phase out.”

According to local environmental NGOs, it was on this point that none of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) Member States were sufficiently ambitious in their draft NECPs.

They did not outline measures that will make it possible to reduce the use of fossil fuels adequately.

In its 27 June press release, CEE Bankwatch Network, the largest networks of environmental NGOs in central and eastern Europe, noted that “the region is failing to set itself on a clear path towards decarbonisation.”

Insufficient progress

“CEE countries are in general increasing their renewable energy target in the NECP (…) but to the bare minimum,” explains Christophe Jost, senior EU policy officer at CEE Bankwatch Network, to Euractiv.

The targets set in these draft NECPs  are below the recommendations of the revised directive on renewable energy.

For example, Poland is aiming for renewables to provide 29.8% of energy by 2030, however the minimum required is 32%; Hungary is proposing 29%, compared to 34%; and Slovakia 23% instead of the required 35%.

According to Johanna Kuld, head of the international public finance campaign at the CEE Bankwatch Network, efforts to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix of these countries, will be undermined by the fact that, “Eastern European member states plan to invest heavily in fossil gas infrastructure, despite the urgent need for climate action.”

CEE countries, however, are now focused on diversifying their energy supply, as many of them used to depend on Russian gas or hydrocarbons, and are now seeking to find an alternative energy sources for security reasons.

As the CEE Bankwatch Network report shows, significant investment has been made in various gas projects in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Latvia and Slovakia.

A lack of investment and ambition

To increase the share of renewables in a country’s energy mix, it is necessary to invest significant into electricity grids, storage solutions, and smart grids. However, environmental NGOs continue to denounce the inadequate capacity of electricity grids.

For Jost, “this leads governments to continue investing in dangerous fossil fuels, costly and uncertain nuclear energy, and other dubious projects.”

Interviewed by Euractiv, Barbora Urbanova, director of Centre for Transport and Energy (CDE) in Czechia, points to other factors hampering the energy transition of CEE countries.

This includes “a lack of understanding of the opportunities and benefits that the energy transition brings, a persistent feeling that climate policy is being imposed from outside [from Brussels], a traditional emissions-intensive industry and coal dependence, but also a lower economic performance compared to Western countries and fear of impoverishment.”

CEE countries, however, are not alone in missing the 30 June deadline. The Commission reported today, Monday 1 July, that only four countries submitted their final NECP on time – the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Rajnish Singh]

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