Committee on Industry, Research and Energy Ordinary meeting
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ITRE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsDan Jørgensen
And we will advance game-changing solutions like heat pumps, batteries and smart technologies for households and industry. Alongside this plan, I will present a heating and cooling strategy, encompassing electrification and alternative solutions including geothermal. Finally, we must also ensure that our grid is fully modern and fit for the 21st century. Today I present a strategic roadmap for digitalisation and AI in energy. Our objective is twofold: to sustainably integrate digital infrastructure in our energy system, while maximising the new opportunities at our fingertips.
By following this roadmap, we can secure our technology sovereignty while transforming and not overwhelming our energy system. Looking forward, the next coming weeks and months will be filled with a number of important initiatives. For example, there'll be the omnibus on energy product legislation and a legislation proposal on network charges. After the summer, we will present a revision of the energy security framework and adopt a post-2030 energy policy framework. On nuclear, we are also working on a REPowerEU nuclear, the European Radioisotope Valley Initiative and the EU fusion strategy, all of which are set for this year.
Although these initiatives are still under preparation, I am happy to hear your views and to answer whatever questions you may have.
Yvan Verougstraete
Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. We will now go to the coordinator group representative for 90 seconds each, with an immediate answer of 90 seconds too, and a possible follow-up of 30 seconds. We'll start with Andrea Wechsler.
Andrea Wechsler
Dear Chair, dear Commissioner, thank you for being with us today. You talked about the current energy crisis in the European Union, and to respond to energy crisis, integration for more homegrown energy is the core answer for Europe. We need a truly integrated energy union. And my first question is therefore, how will you design energy policy so as to become one of the main drivers of European integration in the coming years, comparable to what coal and steel has done in the early years of the European Union? Second, on electrification, and you mentioned the electrification action plan that we are waiting for.
Europe clearly needs more electrification. But in the current crisis, decarbonization cannot be reduced to electrons alone. Are you ready to move beyond a purely electrification-centered approach and give renewable and low-carbon molecules, hydrogen, biomethane, biogas, sustainable fuels, a stronger technology-open role in the forthcoming initiatives? And third, on the grids package and permitting. Strategic energy infrastructure is climate policy and security policy and industrial policy at the same time.
Will you support a clear priority and an overriding public interest approach for energy infrastructure so that permitting procedures become proportionate, predictable, and time-bound? And finally, on the methane regulation, how will you ensure that its implementation reduces emissions without undermining Europe's energy security at the same time, especially regarding imports, legal certainty, and workable compliance rules? Thank you.
Dan Jørgensen
Thank you so much. Big questions, I'll try and see if I can fit answers into 90 seconds. But first and foremost, it's true that we do not have a fully integrated energy union. I agree with that analysis. It's a bit of a paradox, actually, because this community, our union, started as an energy community, coal and steel.
It was energy. So today, many decades later, we are far more integrated on other issues. I've sometimes joked that we are better at selling tomatoes and toothpaste to each other than energy, which is a bit of a paradox when the whole idea of this union was to be integrated in energy. We need to do more, and it's become even more obvious to everybody what the costs of not being integrated is when we're in a crisis like this. Because there's two reasons for the energy prices being too high, or rather, if we look at the different member states, how much they pay for their energy, we always say that we pay two or three times more for our energy here than they do in the US or China, but that's actually probably not a very precise way of putting it because that's an average price, and not many member states pay the average price.
It's more precise to say that some member states have very competitive prices and others have the opposite, very, very high prices. And if you look at what determines whether or not you have high or low prices, it's two things. It's how much renewable energy you have in your system. The more renewables, the cheaper energy. And it's how connected you are to your neighbors.
The more connected you are, the cheaper energy, as a rule of thumb. So for those reasons, price, independence, and of course decarbonization, we do need to be better integrated. And that of course relates to your other questions. Grid package, yes, we do need much better planning also on a European level. So we would like and we've asked for and my proposal to have the possibility of making European-wide scenarios and have them be the basis of our rollout of more interconnections and more cross-border connections.
The energy highway initiatives is also to be seen in that context.
on electrification, that will be the core of this transition. this goes both for renewables but it also goes for nuclear. of course we need to get the black molecules out and the green electrons in and unfortunately our electrification has stagnated within the last decade. I do also agree with you however though that it's not only electrons, it's also molecules. we will need hydrogen based solutions for our hard to abate sectors like aviation or maritime transport and some of the high intensive high energy intensive parts of our industry and therefore yes hydrogen will also be a a very important part of this strategy.
on methane, it is also true that some of the suppliers we have across the planet are a bit worried that they're not able to implement our legislation. again the answer falls in two parts. one is well if it's because you as a country or company do not wish to live up to the rules then we are pretty strict. you have to. this is one of the best ways for us to reduce emissions not only on our own territory but also on the planet plus it wouldn't be fair if we had demands on our own industry that we did not also set to others in other parts of the world.
but and this is the other part of this the the answer, we do also recognize that it's difficult to implement for some member some countries and therefore we are very pragmatic and very helpful with technical assistance to to the countries that that has these concerns. this goes for the US, it goes for Algeria and others. thank you.
one follow-up question having talked about hydrogen, when are we to expect a new delegated act on RFNBOs? thank you.
Niels Fuglsang
yes thank you chair, thank you commissioner, dear Dan. I would like to highlight the importance of heating and cooling. you have mentioned the electrification action plan and I believe this plan will also have some ideas on a heating and cooling strategy which I think is very important as we know that heating and cooling accounts for 50% of our energy use in the European Union and 70% of that comes from fossil fuels today. and we know that when we talk about fossil fuels we're so dependent on importing especially oil and gas from from foreign powers that with whom we don't share values. so I'd like to ask you about the potential that you see and and if you think we can do something about the waste heat that we create here in in Europe.
we know that from data centers alone if we used just half the heat generated we could heat 4 million European homes. however we're not using a lot of that heat today. so how can we do that? do you have ideas that we can work with here? I assume it would also require more district heating systems if we are to use this waste heat and you know that in the energy efficiency directive we have we have a requirement for municipalities with more than 45,000 inhabitants to have heating plans and cooling plans and to see where can they have district heating.
And how can we, according to you, promote this idea and make sure that this is actually implemented? Thank you.
Dan Jørgensen
Thank you, Niels. I do have to apologize for all the people in this room who are not Danish, because, and that is most of you, but there are a few Danish people here, and it's very difficult for me today to not comment on the fact that two hours ago we had a new government in Denmark. And so I'll probably be making a few comments related to that. And to Niels, I will say congratulations, we have the first animal welfare minister in the history of Denmark, and you've been pushing for that. And also a very, very ambitious policy to phase out gas in the Danish heating sector, something that you've been pushing for also.
So congratulations to all of us with that. Yes, you are very right. The waste heat from data centers carries a huge potential. I actually used the exact same example that you just used, that if only we used half of what's there now, we could heat four million homes. I used that in a press conference just one hour ago in the Berlaymont building, because it tells us something about how big the potential is for data centers to also be an integrated positive part of the green transition.
On the other hand, it's also clear that if data centers are not living up to their responsibility and if we're not regulating them well enough, then it becomes a huge problem because already now they're using 2.5% of our electricity in Europe and that will double within maybe five years. So this is not a small task. What we will do is that, taking into consideration that our overall target is not to keep these data centers out, not to keep the tech giants away from Europe, actually we want to attract investments, we want to be tech sovereign also. Taking that into account, we need a sustainability strategy. And a part of that strategy is a label that reflects the sustainability of the projects and also energy efficiency standards.
So this is our way of securing that they become a part of the solution instead of a part of the problem. Your question went a little bit further than data centers, I realize that, and we will put forward a heating and cooling strategy before the summer break that will deal with most of the issues that you mentioned.
Niels Fuglsang
A quick follow-up, perhaps, and I know you used to chair the animal welfare group in this house, Dan, so also congratulations to you on the animal welfare minister. Quick follow-up, geothermal energy then in the heating and cooling approach. Do you see a role for that? You know that in the city we know very well, Aarhus, you have a very exciting and promising geothermal project. And do you think that could be rolled out in other parts of Europe?
Could that be part of our strategy? Thank you.
Dan Jørgensen
I'm glad that you didn't mention that that project was actually my idea originally, because then it would have become too much, then it would have become too much. No, but seriously speaking, geothermal, it's difficult not to do this. He used to write my speeches, so you know. So, seriously speaking though, geothermal, of course, many of you have heard me say this many times, I see a huge potential in that and we will need to do much more. Today there's a lack of subsurface data in many places, there's a lack of maybe not economic incentives, but possibilities of de-risking the investments.
And I would also say that in general, geothermal is not seen enough as a part of the solution to getting rid of the more traditional heat sources for especially district heating, but also other measures. Thank you.
Paolo Borchia
Thank you, Mr. Borchia.
Sì, grazie, Commissario, bentornato. Ma penso che sia finito il tempo delle analisi, adesso arriva ineluttabile il tempo di dare delle soluzioni. La crisi energetica si sta dimostrando più persistente di quanto previsto. Lo stretto di Hormuz rappresenta un contesto di instabilità che sta avendo effetti negativi sui prezzi. L'OCSE ha confermato per quanto riguarda l'Italia gli impatti di questa crisi sul PIL.
E soprattutto oggi mi hanno colpito le parole del suo collega Dombrovskis che ci ha dato anche una buona notizia dicendoci che c'è la possibilità di utilizzare per gli Stati lo spazio fiscale disponibile per le misure energetiche. Però su questo punto io da un lato sono preoccupato per le tempistiche, dall'altro lato temo che le deroghe per il green non vadano a risolvere lo shock, specialmente nel breve termine. Dal febbraio dell'anno scorso la Commissione ha presentato l'action plan per l'energia a prezzi accessibili e più di recente l'action plan per l'elettrificazione come principali risposte. Tuttavia queste misure, dall'espansione della rete alle nuove interconnessioni, alle riforme delle autorizzazioni, lo sviluppo delle rinnovabili, produrranno dei benefici solo nel medio-lungo periodo. E io temo che non possiamo permetterci di aspettare fino al 2025 o al 2030 o al 2035, chiedo scusa.
È una corsa contro il tempo. Presentare l'elettrificazione come strategia di competitività senza prima affrontare il divario di prezzo significa aggravare il problema e non risolverlo. Quindi la mia domanda è: quali sono le misure specifiche dell'action plan per l'energia a prezzi accessibili che lei prevede possano avere un impatto misurabile sui prezzi dell'elettricità entro la fine del 2026 e in che misura?
Dan Jørgensen
Well, you raise some very valid points. I think anybody working with energy policy struggle with this paradox, I guess you could call it, that the most necessary and urgent things you can do, and they are urgent because we need to do them now, will not have an effect in the short term, even though they're urgent. That is the fact of the matter. Many of the most important things that we need to do, we should have done many years ago. So yes, let's start doing them now.
And one of them is to expand our grids. That's probably the biggest potential bottleneck that we have. Electrification also, it is a little bit again of a paradox that on one hand we are expanding renewable energy production and thereby green electrons in record numbers every year. Last year it was 89 gigawatts, the year before it was 78. We produce more energy with renewables now than we do from coal.
But at the same time our electrification has stagnated.
So we face a lot of paradoxes there. And this is also why we've decided to step up on electrification. And our electrification plan will set a target and we will have different measures. Most of them, I have to admit, though, will work on a medium term or even on a long term. So to your very valid question, what will work on the short term?
There are things that will work tomorrow, but most of them is something that we can recommend and facilitate from the European Union, but that member states have to do themselves. It almost also goes without saying, because if I am to propose a new legislation and you are to then negotiate it with the Council, then that alone will take some time and then before it's implemented. But a few examples I will mention. We've set up schemes now so that member states can facilitate, or sorry, so that we can help facilitate that member states support with subsidies different measures like, for instance, changing gas boilers for heat pumps or district heating, or insulation or other types of renovation of buildings. We've also set up schemes that will hopefully help prevent that some of the subsidy schemes that are potentially undermining the green transition when you subsidize, for instance, fossils, that that is temporary and targeted.
So that's an example of us trying to limit the damages of something that is being done. And then finally, what could work fastest and would have the best effect is not something that unfortunately we can do, but that member states could do tomorrow. And that is lowering the taxes on electricity. Many member states have higher taxes on electricity than they do on fossils. We have some member states that pay four times more tax on electricity than they do on gas.
So if member states are serious and they want to do something fast, they can do this within the framework of European law. They can do it internationally. They can do it from one day to the next.
Paolo Borchia
Thank you. Follow up?
Yes, please, but very, very shortly. Commissioner, one more question. What's level of electricity price convergence with the United States or with China does the Commission consider necessary for electrification to become a genuine competitiveness advantage for European industry? Thank you.
Dan Jørgensen
So it's a little bit difficult to put an exact number. We will probably, of course, or we will definitely try and qualify numbers also in our plan. But let me give you a few arguments of why this is complex. Again, I mentioned earlier that actually when we speak about the high prices in Europe, it's probably not that precise because some countries have very high prices, others have average and others have quite cheap. This is actually the same in the US.
They also have varying prices from state to state. But what matters is that if we want cheaper prices in Europe, there's only one way and that way is to become independent of our very, very expensive imports. Right now, we see how vulnerable we are when prices go up. So okay, sometimes there's cheap imports of gas, but it's long time since that's been a very, very cheap source of energy. And certainly the fluctuations and the vulnerability that's connected with us being dependent is not something that we can live with.
There's also another dimension that goes a little bit further than what I mentioned before about the fact that it is the renewables and the percentage of renewables in the system and the connectedness that decides how cheap or expensive electricity is, or energy prices is. That's the main part.
But there's also energy efficiency. And energy efficiency comes in many forms. Very, very often electrification will be an important part of that. So, in almost all instances when you electrify, that's also a more energy efficient way of producing or transporting or heating.
Anna Zalewska
Thank you, Mrs. Zalewska.
I speak Polish. Dziękuję panie komisarzu za spotkanie, za pana wizytę, ale chcę pana zmartwić. Ja takiego wystąpienia wysłuchuję po raz kolejny. Podobne było, kiedy była pandemia, później kiedy wybuchła wojna na Ukrainie, teraz po raz kolejny. Te same tezy, te same strategie, te same opowieści, że za chwilę, że jutro, że w następnej perspektywie.
A tymczasem kolejne szczyty klimatyczne pokazują, że zostaliśmy sami ze swoją polityką. Opowiadamy historie o bezwzględnym uzależnieniu od węglowodorów spoza Unii Europejskiej, bo zamordowaliśmy prawie wszystkie nasze, w tym energię jądrową. Przykładem są tutaj Niemcy, które narzuciły też taką ideologię w całej Unii Europejskiej. Dopiero od 2023, o ile się nie mylę, mamy w taksonomii, w rozporządzeniu możliwość kredytowania elektrowni atomowych. A chcę panu komisarzowi przypomnieć, że w 90% jesteśmy uzależnieni od metali ziem rzadkich, które to są całym konstruktem prawa klimatycznego i pakietu Fit for 55.
Mówi pan o integracji energetycznej. Proszę powiedzieć, jak pan sobie to wyobraża, ile to kosztuje, kto będzie za to płacił i jak to się ma do niezależności energetycznych poszczególnych krajów członkowskich. Oprócz tego mówi pan tutaj, bo usłyszałam też panią von der Leyen o tym mówiła, że żeby obniżyć rachunki za energię należy ściągnąć tam niektóre podatki i dodatkowo opodatkować te opodatkowane ETS-em węgiel i gaz, jakbyśmy nie widzieli, że ta energia powstaje właśnie z gazu i węgla. Jak państwo sobie to wyobrażają, w jaki sposób to policzyliście? Jednocześnie chcę zapytać już bardzo szczegółowo, pan też mówi, są pytania dotyczące, okej, wodoru.
Proszę pokazać, które eksperymenty produkowania energii z czegoś, co przenosi energię, a nie produkuje, a potrzebuje półtora raza więcej energii na to przenoszenie, ile instalacji wodorowych bilansuje się i jest konkurencyjnych.
Yvan Verougstraete
Thank you. We would have to speed up a little bit because otherwise we won't have room for all the catch-the-eyes, and anyway we will have to make some selection on that. So please, but try to stick to the time because otherwise we won't have any possibility on the catch-the-eye. Thank you.
Dan Jørgensen
Yeah, so okay, I think that was probably more of a comment than a question. But on the question on whether we should tax fossils more than renewables, I think it's quite clear that if we want to create the right incentives, taxation is the most obvious.
So whether or not you believe in having an energy policy that helps us decarbonize our societies and fight climate change, as I do, or not, if you just look at the numbers, it's very clear that it's the renewables that are the cheapest. And the hours of the day where it's the renewables that deliver is also the hours of the day where we have the cheapest prices. And the hours of the day where it is gas, that's when it's most expensive. Now, we've fortunately managed to bring ourselves in a situation that's much better now than it was in '22. In '22, 70% of the time it was gas setting the price.
Today is the complete opposite. Today it's 70% of the time renewables that sets the price. So yes, we are in a crisis. Yes, I certainly don't neglect that crisis, but we would have been in a much, much worse situation had we not done what we've done since '22.
Yvan Verougstraete
Thank you, Mr. Grudler. Ah, sorry, for a follow-up question, very quickly then, please.
Anna Zalewska
Tak, bardzo proszę. Proszę zauważyć, panie komisarzu, że pan ulega ideologii. Mianowicie OZE tylko dlatego jest tańsze, bo węglowodory zostały opodatkowane i dobrze pan wie, że OZE jest dotowane i subwencjonowane, bo inaczej nie miałoby szans funkcjonować. Ale ja chcę zapytać już bardzo konkretnie: w jakim tempie i w jaki sposób chcecie państwo obniżyć ceny energii dla Europejczyków?
Dan Jørgensen
It's not an ideology. I also have an ideology and I'll be happy to give a speech on that another day, but this is just the facts. Renewables are cheaper than fossils. They didn't used to be, so for many years it was a vision that drove it. I come from a country where we built the first offshore wind farm in the world.
That was not cheap. That was ideology. That was a vision. But I think we should all be happy that somebody had that vision 30 years ago, even though it was a bit expensive, because that what means that today offshore wind is cheaper than coal in producing energy.
Thank you, Mr. Grudler.
Christophe GRUDLER
Merci, Monsieur le Président. Merci, Monsieur le Commissaire Jørgensen, pour votre présence en ITRE. J'ai deux sujets d'inquiétude. Tout d'abord, le premier, c'est le plan d'électrification qui nous a été annoncé en mai, après en juin, et maintenant en juillet. Et que dire de la révision du cadre sur la sécurité d'approvisionnement qui a totalement disparu de la programmation de la Commission ?
Et tout cela en pleine crise énergétique. Pendant ce temps, nos entreprises européennes de technologies propres, comme l'entreprise de panneaux solaires Carbon en France, ferment faute de visibilité. Nous restons dépendants de combustibles fossiles importés dont le prix fluctue au gré des crises que nous ne contrôlons pas. Le marché seul ne se tournera pas vers l'électrification. Les fossiles restent bon marché et sans signal clair, aucun industriel n'investira massivement dans la transition.
Donc ce plan sera-t-il bien publié en juillet et contiendra-t-il, il semble que oui, un objectif d'électrification chiffré et ambitieux ? Ma deuxième question concerne évidemment l'acte délégué sur le label durabilité des data centers. Je me félicite que la Commission ait entendu les nombreuses interpellations et décidé de reporter ce texte pour le retravailler.
C'est une bonne décision. Mais maintenant je souhaiterais savoir où en sont les discussions, comment la Commission compte-elle intégrer l'électricité nucléaire dans ce label sans aucune discrimination. Un data center alimenté majoritairement par du nucléaire est parmi les moins carbonés d'Europe. Il ne peut pas être pénalisé par un label censé mesurer la durabilité.
Dan Jørgensen
I can be quite brief. Yes, we will present the plan before before the summer, so in July, and yes, it will include an ambitious target, and yes, we will make a label and yes, it will reflect technology neutrality.
Christophe GRUDLER
Monsieur Grudler, une question de suivi. Merci, toujours très heureux quand il y a de la neutralité technologique dans les actes délégués de la Commission. Sur le plan électrification, la Commission fixera-t-elle des objectifs européens en matière de flexibilité ou a minima prévoit-elle des incitations à la flexibilité ? Et j'ai aussi une question sur l'hydrogène bas carbone. La consultation sur la méthode de prise en compte de l'électricité nucléaire doit être lancée avant fin juin.
Est-ce que vous nous confirmez bel et bien cette date ou est-ce que c'est décalé ? Merci.
Dan Jørgensen
By the way, I didn't answer short to be impolite, it was the opposite, because I like Mr. Grudler, so I said I will answer you as precise and short as I can.
Yvan Verougstraete
Short and positive answer. Thank you. Mrs. Jutta Paulus, please, the floor is yours.
Jutta Paulus
Yes, thank you very much, Commissioner, for being here and for being ready for this exchange. I was a bit taken aback by today's press readout for the data center tech sovereignty package. As you might know, I was shadow rapporteur for the Energy Efficiency Directive, and I'm honestly asking myself whether Commission, I'm not talking of you personally, I know you have personally another vision, whether Commission is now taking the next step of, well, falling on their knees towards the big tech brothers. So the first steps were not properly enforcing DMA and DSA, and now the next step is not adhering to the own legislation where we actually have in the Energy Efficiency Directive the label on sustainability, on water use, on use of renewable energy, that's in the legislation, so Christophe, and now I'm hearing that the Commission is starting a consultation, which is not what's in the legislation, I'm very sorry. So please allow the question, why is this, let's say, shift of priorities away from EU legislation towards the demands of the tech brothers?
And secondly, I would also like to learn, when you're considering to take a technologically neutral approach, which, as I said, is against the annex of the Energy Efficiency Directive, how are you going to take into account the additionality principle? Thank you.
Dan Jørgensen
Yeah, so obviously if I had all the details of what the label would look like today, then we would have presented it today, of course. I'm sure you can appreciate, but I totally understand and I think it's a very, it's a series of very legitimate questions that you that you ask.
I do have an issue though with your interpretation that we are taking the knee towards these tech giants. I think we're doing the opposite today actually. Yes, we want to attract investments. Yes, we want tech sovereignty. Yes, we need to be leaders, frontrunners on AI and therefore we also need investments.
But we were very, very clear. The words that I used that you see in the readout, I think you will have noticed also that the words that I used was we are setting demands, quite strict demands. Because if if these tech companies are not energy efficient, if they don't live up to the to very high standards, if they don't use waste heat, if they don't use clean energy, if they don't save water, if they don't do all of these things, then they become a part of our problem instead of part of our solution. And they do actually have the potential to be a part of our solution. So we will introduce standards, we'll introduce a label.
We will also introduce tripartite schemes so that we can have local arrangement to secure that they are integrated well in the grid to the benefit of not only them but also the grid and the communities. And I think by the way this is also in the interest of the industry and the tech companies because if they don't become a part of the solution, then they risk losing public support. We've seen this in the US for instance where they've I'm not quite sure if there's been actual moratoriums or they're only considering moratoriums on tech centers, but but it's definitely on the agenda. And and the country that I know best, the atmosphere has also changed from being very, very positive to now being quite critical because they don't many citizens don't feel that and local communities don't feel that they carry the responsibility that they should. So that's also why my signal is very clear today and the signal will be followed up with real policy.
They need to be sustainable.
Jutta Paulus
Thank you for the follow-up.
Yes, I scanned over the Cloud and AI Development Act and in Article 14 there is already a designation of data centers strategic projects which would have access to speeded up environmental assessment. So they already have the possibility to be labeled as strategic where I myself ask how will you control whether they will do strategic services over their whole lifetime? But we don't have the criteria yet. How is this supposed to work? Thanks.
Dan Jørgensen
Yeah, so so we are definitely working very hard on also having a holistic approach to both the the overall strategy of how will our tech sovereignty be accomplished and how is that then aligned with what's my responsibility that the energy sector can also not only manage this, but actually benefit from this.
Gaetano Pedullà
Grazie Commissario Jørgensen per questo nuovo confronto. Le faccio tre domande le faccio tre domande secche molto molto veloci. La prima stamattina è stata concessa una deroga al patto di stabilità per affrontare i problemi dell'energia nei nostri paesi uno spazio fiscale che per stati come l'Italia per esempio equivalgono a pochissime risorse lo 0,3% del PIL. Come si concilia questa è la domanda questa misura così piccola con il quadro che lei ci ha appena fornito di volatilità e di incertezza per l'energia.
La seconda domanda: torno sul tema dei data center. Lei ci ha detto, lei ci ha detto adesso che non li stiamo regolando nel modo giusto, parole sue di un attimo fa. Mentre attendiamo le nuove misure, i grandi gruppi stanno costruendo in questo momento grandi data center. C'è una sollevazione popolare, un'enorme preoccupazione dei cittadini proprio perché manca quella trasparenza che ci auguriamo sarà inserita tra le direttive. Non pensa sia il caso di proporre una raccomandazione ai paesi perché in attesa delle regole non si costruiscano queste strutture?
Ultima questione: sei mesi fa, sei mesi fa lei ci ha presentato il piano casa. È un piano che ha ricadute importantissime sulla transizione energetica. A sei mesi di distanza, commissario, che cosa accade? Grazie.
Dan Jørgensen
Yes, so I can maybe start with the housing part. We put forward an affordable housing plan, as I'm sure you know, some months back and we're now implementing that. And we will put forward the first legislative proposal also here before, before summer. We are finalizing it now on short-term rentals. And we've made a pan-European investment platform together with EIB to facilitate investments in sustainable and affordable housing.
And we've changed the state aid rules as to make it easier for member states to, to support affordable housing and not only social housing. But of course these are just the first steps, there'll, there'll be much more. You can always argue that 0.3% is little. It, it may sound little, but actually it's, it adds up to very, very big amounts. And I, I will say that probably there will probably be a number of member states that will think it's too much.
It's, it's certainly, it's certainly a change of policy. I think it's a welcome change of policy from, from the Commission. And, and I applaud that we've taken this step. And I think it will lead to some very important investments. And I would also say to, to those who, who maybe is skeptical, whether you're skeptical because you think it's too much or too little, that it is a balance that we need to strike.
Because on one hand, if we don't manage to safeguard our economic responsibility, then we all know the negative consequences of that: higher interest rates, other things that will also hurt, by the way, the green, the green agenda. On the other hand, we also need instruments to support the sectors in which we need further investments that has strategic importance for us. And defense is one, but energy is certainly also one. This is why I, I like that. And then, what was the last part?
Yeah, maybe I, I forget the last part, there was one more part, but I forgot.
Gaetano Pedullà
Esatto. Grazie. I data center che stanno nascendo nei nostri stati senza rispettare alcuna regola perché siamo in una fase di Far West sostanzialmente in attesa delle indicazioni di trasparenza che voi indicherete. Non è il caso di raccomandare ai paesi un rinvio rispetto alle autorizzazioni? Noi rischiamo di avere un consumo di energia, un consumo di suolo fuori controllo.
Grazie.
Dan Jørgensen
Yes. Okay, sorry. Thanks, Anastasia. No, but to some extent I agree with you that this is urgent. We, this is going very fast, big investments in many Member States and we need clarity.
On the other hand, these are very important decisions, so we need to make it right. We need to do it fast, but we still need to make it right. So we're working as fast as we can and we did put forward today a package of a lot of measures that will indeed bring more clarity, better regulation on a whole range of issues connected to data centers. And on the energy part, yes, there's still some real work to be done. But the signal that we sent today is not difficult to interpret, neither for the industry or for the Member States.
Yes, data centers are welcome. Yes, they will be necessary for us in the future and we do want to have investments in Europe. But it can only happen if it's sustainable and it can only happen if they apply energy efficiency and we will keep them accountable.
Sarah KNAFO
Merci Monsieur le Président, Monsieur le Commissaire. L'un des maîtres mots de la Commission, c'est la sobriété. Vous demandez aux Européens de consommer moins, de se chauffer moins, de rouler moins, j'ai envie de dire de vivre moins. Avec le litre de carburant au-dessus de 2 euros, vous allez bientôt être exaucés. Mais les familles ne renoncent pas à leurs vacances par vertu écologique.
Elles y renoncent faute de moyens. Vous appelez donc sobriété ce que la langue française nomme tout simplement pauvreté. À peine un foyer européen sur cinq possède un climatiseur contre neuf sur dix aux États-Unis. Nos enfants étouffent dans des écoles surchauffées, nos salariés peinent dans des ateliers que rien ne rafraîchit. Et la chaleur a un coût car une usine perd environ 2 % de sa production par degré.
Cette sobriété-là, c'est choisir d'être moins productif par pur dogme. L'Europe, écrasée de fiscalité et de normes, perd ses industries. En France, la consommation d'électricité est au plus bas depuis 20 ans. En voilà de la sobriété, mais cette sobriété-là porte un autre nom : la désindustrialisation. Et au même moment l'an dernier, côté production, l'Europe a connu 5 000 heures de prix négatifs.
Ces heures où nous produisons tant de solaire à midi que nous payons pour nous en débarrasser. Des milliards pour fabriquer des excédents inutiles le jour, des milliards encore pour combler les manques le soir. Dommage que la sobriété ne s'applique jamais à la dépense publique. Car il existe une règle intangible. Aucun pays riche ne consomme peu d'énergie, aucun pays pauvre n'en consomme beaucoup.
Alors de quel côté voulons-nous être ? Rationner l'énergie, c'est rationner l'économie, c'est rationner la production, la richesse, le bien-être, c'est rationner l'avenir. Alors voici ma question, Monsieur le Commissaire : allez-vous abandonner le dogme de la sobriété pour choisir l'abondance énergétique dont dépendent notre prospérité et notre liberté ? Je vous remercie.
Dan Jørgensen
Many things I could comment on here, I'll choose a few. I struggle to see how it makes any sense to use the word freedom in connection with us potentially spending more money on fossils. Since the fossils that we will be buying would come either from the Middle East, Russia until we passed a law that banned it, or the US, or even our very close friends in Norway that I really cherish the partnership we have with. Still, we are dependent on them and we pay a very high price for that. That's not freedom for me.
Freedom for me would be if we could produce our own energy. And until we're there where we have 100% homegrown energy, then the energy that we get, we get them from such a diverse group of suppliers that we can choose.
So it's us that has the freedom to choose. Right now, that's not the case at all because we import for more than 370 billion on average euros a year of fossils. And right now, it's so expensive that we pay 650 million euros more per day. It's not freedom. And if it had been freedom, it would have been very, very expensive freedom, but it's not.
So it's very expensive and it's not even giving us freedom, it's the opposite. And you mentioned air conditioners. I know that I'm using an example now that you will not like because I know that's not the reason why you mentioned it. But air conditioners is actually, the number of air conditioners are increasing now with a speed in the world that means that that is the highest increase in energy consumption we see on the planet, higher than data centers. That's true.
That's crazy. Why? Primarily because of climate change. In Europe, I'm sure there's a lot of citizens that would like air conditioning that hasn't got it. Why?
Because it's becoming hotter. Europe, we are the continent that's heating up the fastest because of climate change. So again, should we change strategy? It would be a little bit strange if we used the argument of more people being able to buy air conditioners for burning more fossils that would heat up our planet. So unless you work for an air conditioner factory, then I see the business case for that.
But if you also have a wish to actually do what's best for our citizens and our planet, then I would not recommend to follow that strategy.
Sarah KNAFO
Monsieur le Commissaire, je ne vous accuse pas de travailler pour un quelconque intérêt privé, alors merci de respecter la dignité de chacune de nos paroles. Vous dites les fossiles viendront du Proche-Orient, de la Russie, vous ajoutez les États-Unis à juste titre. Donc vous prônez le tout électrique. Mais d'où viendront les batteries ? De Chine.
Est-ce que passer d'une dépendance au pétrole à une dépendance au lithium, c'est ça votre proposition ? Je pense pouvoir affirmer que passer d'un maître à l'autre, ce n'est ni la liberté, ni la souveraineté. En revanche, varier nos dépendances et ne pas mettre tous nos œufs dans le même panier, c'est ça être souverain.
Dan Jørgensen
Well, that part I agree with you on. I wasn't actually implying that you worked for an air conditioner company, I was just trying to make a joke, I apologize. I do agree with you that we need to be quite mindful not to replace one type of dependency with another. And this is why we also have a strategy of having more production of clean green technology in Europe. So that that is an important point.
I could add to that critical raw minerals. Also here, we live in a world where China has more or less monopoly on many of the ones that we need the most, also for our energy sector. So we do have a lot of work in front of us there, I admit to that.
Yvan Verougstraete
Thank you very much. We will now pass to the catch-the-eye. We will not have the time to give the floor to everybody, so I will make a selection. Please try to stick to the time, one minute each and one minute answer. And we will start with Mr. Hansen from EPP.
Morten Hansen
Thank you very much, and let me be the first from a Danish opposition party to congratulate you with your very strange government. In the negotiations on TEN-E, there is still a disagreement over the proposal to ringfence 25% of congestion revenues for cross-border projects.
This is particularly evident in the Council where Sweden has put the Konti-Skan cable to Denmark on hold as a demonstration of its determination to remove the provision requiring 25% of congestion revenues to be ringfenced. At the same time, industry stakeholders point out that such a ringfencing could limit TSOs' ability to reduce and maintain affordable tariffs for electricity consumers. Does the Commission still believe it makes sense to maintain the requirement of 25% of congestion revenues to be used for cross-border projects? Almost a minute. Thank you.
We will go to Mrs. Penkova.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Dear Commissioner Jørgensen, thanks for being here today. As the S&D rapporteur, I'm working towards to ensure that we actually have a grid that's stable, secure, flexible, and provides the low-price electricity in every region of the EU. But of course, this needs very long-term structural investments in order to ensure that this is what our businesses and citizens are going to be receiving in the long-term and sustainable future.
However, everyone needs answers and measures now. We do appreciate the electrification plan. We do appreciate the Accelerate EU that has been presented. And I have a very specific question here. How is the Commission ensuring a strong follow-up with the Member States so that the implementation is not uneven and the citizens, industries, SMEs in all parts of Europe would be benefiting from those short-term measures that we need to urgently undertake now?
Thank you.
András Gyürk
Köszönöm a szót, elnök úr. Tisztelt biztos úr! Két, a magyar embereket közvetlenül érintő és érdeklő energiapolitikai témában kérdezném önt. Először is, 2026 márciusától a magyar fogyasztókat védett üzemanyagár óvja a közel-keleti konfliktus következtében megemelkedett olajár káros hatásaitól. Egy hónappal ezelőtt a Bizottság kötelezettségszegési eljárást indított Magyarország ellen, és az intézkedés azonnali megszüntetésére szólított fel.
Hol tart most ez az eljárás, és mit tapasztal a magyar kormány részéről ez ügyben? Második kérdésem: a Bizottság a villamosenergia-irányelvről szóló április végi jelentésében a jogszabállyal összeegyeztethetetlennek minősítette a magyar lakossági rezsicsökkentést. Továbbá a piaci alapú árképzés felé irányuló menetrend elkészítését is előirányozták. Meg tudja-e erősíteni azt a vélekedést, hogy a lakossági árszabályozás felülvizsgálata egyfajta előfeltétele lehet az uniós energetikai infrastruktúra-fejlesztési forrásokhoz történő hozzáférésnek? Köszönöm a válaszait, biztos úr.
Marion Maréchal
Merci, Monsieur le Président. Merci, Monsieur le Commissaire. Je profite que vous soyez là pour vous lancer une invitation, puisqu'il se trouve qu'à une demi-heure en voiture du Parlement européen à Strasbourg, il y a une société française qui est en train de réaliser un forage en géothermie profonde qui va permettre à la fois de produire de la chaleur, mais également d'extraire du lithium, dont vous savez l'importance pour nos batteries automobiles électriques. Et je rebondis sur la géothermie parce que vous avez parlé d'une énergie intéressante, mais il me semble que c'est au-delà de ça.
On a un véritable potentiel stratégique phénoménal sous nos pieds. On a là une énergie qui est pilotable, qui est disponible 24 heures sur 24, qui est locale, qui permettrait de réduire la dépendance à des États tels que le Qatar ou l'Algérie, de réduire la dépendance avec le GNL américain dont nous connaissons le prix prohibitif. Et c'est vrai que sur ce sujet, les acteurs dénoncent un certain nombre d'insuffisances dans le plan d'action puisque il n'y a eu que quelques mentions assez générales sur la géothermie dans le fameux plan Accelerate EU 2026. On sait qu'il n'y a pas d'objectifs contraignants. On parle d'une extrême faiblesse des financements dédiés, une absence de véritable stratégie industrielle.
Alors j'aimerais savoir si vous comptez revoir les objectifs à la hausse. Et vous avez parlé tout à l'heure de limiter les risques dans les investissements. Est-ce que vous pourriez donner davantage de précisions ? Excusez-moi, j'ai dépassé.
Sigrid Friis
Tak for det, og ligesom dig, Dan, så glæder jeg mig også i dag over den nye regering, som Danmark har fået, og ikke mindst den retning, som det sætter både for mere grøn energi og blikket for, hvor vigtig energipolitikken er for os, vores sikkerhedspolitik. For selvom det her er en glædens dag, så passerer vi også en lidt mere ærgerlig dag i weekenden, nemlig 100 dage siden, Hormuz-strædet lukkede og jo sendte chokbølger til de europæiske energimarkeder og ikke mindst nogle rigtig høje priser, som mange både virksomheder og borgere mærker i Europa. I den her situation, så håber jeg virkelig, og ser virkelig frem til med høje forventninger den næste reviderede ramme for energisikkerhed i Europa, og forstår, at arbejdet med både elektricitet og gas allerede er meget langt. Men kan du fortælle os i dag lidt om, hvordan vi kan forvente, det kommer til at se ud på rollen for olie ? Jeg tror, jeg vil gøre det så kort og klart, så oliens rolle i den kommende reviderede ramme for energisikkerhed.
Per Klausen
Thank you, I will speak in Danish. Jeg skal også ønske kommissæren tillykke med, at hans parti igen har fået regeringsmagten, og igen skal vores parti gøre, hvad vi kan for at hjælpe kommissærens parti med at føre en fornuftig politik. Det bliver nok nødvendigt. Det er jo helt oplagt, at vi står i en alvorlig krise, som gør omstillingen af energisektoren til vedvarende energi endnu mere nødvendig end nogensinde. Det skyldes økonomi, det skyldes sikkerhed, det skyldes klima.
Det handler jo om, at vi skal være uafhængige af gas og olie, som kommissæren også har nævnt. Men så er der nogen, der så snakker om atomkraft som noget, der skulle gøre os uafhængige. Jeg vil bare spørge kommissæren, om han ikke er enig i, om vi ikke skal være opmærksomme på, at den uran, der bruges i atomkraftværker, også importeres, og en del af det, en ikke uvæsentlig del, importeres fra Rusland. Så hvis det virkelig handler om, at vi skal være uafhængige i vores energiforsyning, så er vi også nødt til at satse på vedvarende energikilder og acceptere, at atomkraft ikke er det rigtige svar her.
Yvan Verougstraete
Thank you, I will take two more persons, Mr. Niebler. Mrs. Niebler, sorry. No ? So Mr. Tobé.
Tomas Tobé
Thank you, Chair, I will be speaking in Swedish. Kommissionär Jørgensen, jag kan kanske inte dela din stora glädje över den nya danska regeringen, men ni är såklart Sveriges granne och vi kommer att hitta ett sätt att fortsätta älska er och bygga en relation givetvis. Som du vet så är ju Sverige inte ett stort land sett till befolkning, men vi är faktiskt EU:s näst största exportör av el. Och vi har skapat ett elsystem som är 99 procent fossilfritt. Och det är klart att i kommissionens nätpaketförslag så fanns ju övervägandet att försöka flytta 30 miljarder svenska kronor till andra länder.
Det här var givetvis fullkomligt oacceptabelt. Nu är det bra att det här förslaget verkar vara borta från bordet. Men jag skulle vilja fråga idag, är du och kommissionen också öppna för att flaskhalsintäkterna ska kunna användas som elstöd och för ny fossilfri produktion? För det vore att stötta Sverige och inte straffa Sverige och det vore också bra för Europa. Tack.
Yvan Verougstraete
Thank you and last the person Mr. Thomas Pellerin-Carlin and then we give the floor back to the commissioner.
Thomas Pellerin-Carlin
Monsieur le commissaire, Donald Trump a déclenché une guerre illégale et inutile et il en profite aujourd'hui pour s'ingérer dans les décisions européennes en nous menaçant, notamment pour faire annuler le règlement européen pour la réduction des émissions de méthane. La pleine mise en œuvre de ce règlement est essentielle pour au moins deux raisons. Premièrement, pour ralentir le dérèglement climatique, et je le dis après qu'une vague de chaleur ait frappé la France au mois de mai 2026 et a tué sept personnes la semaine dernière. Le méthane est un gaz à effet de serre extrêmement puissant, très dangereux, qui réchauffe le climat de manière extrêmement rapide et donc réduire les émissions de méthane est essentiel pour combattre le dérèglement climatique immédiatement. Deuxièmement, le règlement méthane facilite la mise en œuvre de notre décision d'arrêter d'importer du gaz russe.
Le marché du GNL est un marché extrêmement opaque. Et donc mettre de la transparence dans ce marché-là est essentiel tant pour protéger l'environnement que pour empêcher Vladimir Poutine de contourner les lois que nous venons d'adopter. Merci.
Yvan Verougstraete
Please, it will not be that simple to answer all those questions in a few minutes and I know that you have to leave, so please take the floor.
Dan Jørgensen
Yes, unfortunately I should have been out of the door already but I will do my best and then I'm sure we'll have other chances also if I don't get to answer all of the questions. Thanks to those of you who congratulated us on the government. I can say, Per, you said that once again your party will have to help us, by us I guess you mean my party in Denmark. And that is true, but actually it's even further than that because, and I'll share a secret with you in this room, Per's former assistant is now a minister in the Danish government, for a different party though, but still. And she is a very, very, very skilled person, she used to be the president of the Danish Nature Conservation Organization, so she will be a great, great minister I'm sure and I'm sure she will actually help us.
On your question on nuclear, yes it is true that a lot of the fuel is imported and unfortunately some of it is still imported from Russia and that is also part of our REPowerEU plan to also solve that problem. It's not without complications as you know, but we are working on it. On the congestion taxes, both from our Swedish friend and from the Fleming, we are working with the Swedish government on trying to solve some of these problems. On one hand I do understand the frustration in Sweden because you are, as you rightly said, one of the countries that are doing what we want all countries to do and then on the same side it's not always working out to your benefit. On the other hand, as you also mentioned, you are a big exporter of energy which is also something that you make money on, so we need to find this balance of course.
And we are working closely with the government on that and also in the core negotiations this is on the table and I know also the rapporteurs in the parliament are knowledgeable about those problems. Geothermal, we will put forward a strategy on action plan on geothermal in connection with the heating and cooling plan here before summer, so it's not only the mentioning in the Accelerate EU, we have more coming up.
I totally agree with you with the, with the potential. On implementation, I very much agree we do need to be more stringent towards Member States. Paradox also, when we speak about our interconnectiveness in Europe, if we did what we've already agreed to do, the 70% rule, the rollout of smart meters, all of those things, we would have been in a much, much better place than we, than we actually are. And we've also said that, that we will be putting forward a lot of infringements in the time to come because really, we cannot, we're in a crisis now, we need to start doing what we've promised each other to, to do. On, on the security framework, yes, we're working on to see how we can include the oil and that is too early to say where that work ends, but we're working as fast and as hard as we can.
And of course, this work was also interrupted or at least made necessary for us to put in a different context with the crisis that we're in right now. But I'll be happy to discuss that in more detail with you also. Now I have to run because I have to go to Finland.
Yvan Verougstraete
It's also important. Thank you for the, for the time to join us. I'll just, we'll give you a, a boost of vitamin because I, I think really we need energy and we need you to do something bold, something disruptive, and be sure that we have money to do so. Thank you very much. Thank you.
We are supposed to start in one minute with Commissioner Virkkunen, but she had some, some delay, so I propose we make a 10-minute break and then we can restart. Thank you very much.
The second item is the Chair's announcements. The meeting is being webstreamed and interpretation is available in all languages except for Maltese and Irish. I would also like to inform you that the next ITRE meeting will take place on the 23rd and 24th of January. The third item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes of the meetings of the 25th and 26th of October and the 14th of November. I see no objections, so the minutes are approved.
The fourth item is the report back on ongoing interinstitutional negotiations. I would like to give the floor to the rapporteurs for a brief update. First, on the internal market for renewable and natural gases and for hydrogen, I give the floor to Mr. Buzek.
Jerzy Buzek
Thank you, Madam Chair. We had the third trilogue on the gas package on the 28th of November. We reached a provisional agreement on several important issues, such as the definition of hydrogen, the certification of low-carbon gases, and the role of the European Network of Network Operators for Hydrogen. We still have some outstanding issues, such as the unbundling rules for hydrogen networks and the tariffs for gas and hydrogen. We are working hard to reach a final agreement before the end of the year.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Buzek. Next, on the energy performance of buildings, I give the floor to Mr. Cuffe.
Jerzy Buzek
Thank you, Chair. We had the fourth trilogue on the EPBD on the 7th of December. We reached a provisional agreement on the main elements of the directive, including the minimum energy performance standards, the zero-emission building standard, and the solar mandate. We also agreed on the provisions for financing and technical assistance. I am very happy with this result, which will help us to reduce energy poverty and achieve our climate goals.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Cuffe. Next, on the Net Zero Industry Act, I give the floor to Mr. Ehler.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We had the first trilogue on the Net Zero Industry Act on the 13th of December. It was a very constructive meeting, where we discussed the scope of the act, the selection criteria for net-zero strategic projects, and the permitting procedures. We have a good basis for further negotiations and we hope to reach an agreement in the first quarter of next year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ehler. Finally, on the Critical Raw Materials Act, I give the floor to Mr. Beer.
Jerzy Buzek
Thank you, Chair. We had the second trilogue on the Critical Raw Materials Act on the 12th of December. We reached a provisional agreement on the list of critical and strategic raw materials, the targets for domestic production, recycling and processing, and the monitoring and stress-testing mechanisms. We also agreed on the criteria for strategic projects and the environmental and social standards. I think this is a very important step for our strategic autonomy and our green transition.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beer. This concludes the report back on negotiations. We now move to the next item, which is the presentation of the study on the role of the European Parliament in the energy policy.
Jerzy Buzek
I would like to remind you that the interpretation is available in all the official languages of the European Union. I would like to ask you to use the microphones when you speak. I would like to ask you to respect the speaking time. I would like to inform you that the agenda of the meeting has been distributed. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the agenda.
If there are no comments, the agenda is adopted. I would like to inform you that the minutes of the previous meeting have been distributed. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the minutes. If there are no comments, the minutes are adopted. I would like to inform you that the coordinators of the committee have met and have made some decisions.
I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the decisions of the coordinators. If there are no comments, the decisions of the coordinators are adopted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some documents from the Commission and from the Council. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the documents. If there are no comments, the documents are noted.
I would like to inform you that the committee has received some petitions. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the petitions. If there are no comments, the petitions are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some letters. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the letters.
If there are no comments, the letters are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some reports from the other committees. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the reports. If there are no comments, the reports are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some opinions from the other committees.
I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the opinions. If there are no comments, the opinions are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the reports. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments. If there are no comments, the amendments are noted.
I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the opinions. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments. If there are no comments, the amendments are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the draft reports. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments.
If there are no comments, the amendments are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the draft opinions. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments. If there are no comments, the amendments are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the draft motions for a resolution.
I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments. If there are no comments, the amendments are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the draft legislative resolutions. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments. If there are no comments, the amendments are noted.
I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the draft recommendations. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments. If there are no comments, the amendments are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the draft decisions. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments.
If there are no comments, the amendments are noted. I would like to inform you that the committee has received some amendments to the draft reports on the discharge. I would like to ask you if there are any comments on the amendments. If there are no comments, the amendments are noted.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Colleagues, may I please ask you to take your seats, so we're going to start in about 10 seconds. Perfect. It's a pleasure for us to to welcome Ms. Henna Virkkunen, the Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy to this exchange of views on the technological sovereignty package that was adopted today by the Commission. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation to to rejoin the ITRE Committee today. The technological sovereignty package is part of the overall objective to enhance Europe's technological sovereignty and autonomy, competitiveness and resilience.
In in it is in particular when it speaks about the Cloud and the AI Development Act that aimed at boosting data center construction as well as Chips Act 2.0. We'll have approximately 60 minutes for this discussion. We have the speakers list already adopted and we're going to have a catch-the-eye procedure if that if the time allows. So if you want to take part of this of this part of the debate, please put your name tags vertically. And without further ado, I would like to first give the floor to to Commissioner Virkkunen for 10 minutes for her opening remarks.
The floor is yours. Thank you.
Henna Virkkunen
Thank you very much, honorable Chair, honorable members. It's a great pleasure to be here and present our tech sovereignty package that was adopted just today. And this is very crucial step for Europe because we are positioning ourselves for the future of digital technologies and addressing also our strategic dependencies with this package. This does not mean retreating from global cooperation, but Europe needs to be in the position to make our own choices, avoid dependence on single dominant suppliers, especially from of one company or one third country. Because we see that we are really living in the world where geopolitics and technology, they are going hand in hand.
Those who lead technological innovation will shape the future, and we must ensure that Europe plays the leading role here. And today's package has three main objectives. First, to transform our economy by driving the adoption of new technologies and AI. Also to reinforce the resilience of our supply chains and to promote the European way for tech sovereignty. And this package is designed to deliver through four key elements.
We have first the Chips Act 2.0. We have the Cloud and AI Development Act, so both are regulations. And then we have EU open source strategy as well. And then we have also a strategic roadmap for digitalization and AI in energy. But I think Commissioner Jørgensen was just here before me and he was already representing this pillar.
And these complement our existing initiatives such as the AI Gigafactories. And I will now very shortly present these key elements for you. First, about Chips Act 2.0. And here we know of course that you as ITRE members you have been playing very key part on building our first Chips Act. And it has been a success we can say because 52 billion euros in concrete investment has done and 80 billion euros commitments has been done.
Five pilot lines to bridge the lab-to-fab gap has been also introduced and also a network of competence centers across all our Member States and also to Norway. But now also the landscape has shifted when we are looking semiconductor sector as a whole. And that's why we need to take our share of the AI-related chip market. Because according to estimates AI-related components will make up over 70% of the total semiconductor market so soon as 2030. So very soon AI chips they will be the biggest part of semiconductor market.
And that's why it's important that we are really boosting our own capacity in AI chips. And the Chips Act 2 will stimulate now the demand and also consolidate supply chains and limit also administrative burden. And this will be done by enabling faster permitting procedures, also enhancing international cooperation and also boosting demand for European chips by nurturing Europe's chip design ecosystem and strengthening our supply chain capabilities across the entire value chain including also through strategic projects and then also monitoring and addressing structural vulnerabilities in the supply chains. So we will focus very much in our Chips Act 2.0 to that that we are able to design and manufacture also more advanced AI chips in the coming years in Europe. But in the same time we have to build better resilience to our supply chains and of course continue the activities in the field where we are already very strong especially when it comes to legacy chips.
Then we have also our Cloud and AI Development Act as a part of this package and it's a whole whole new legislation. We know that chips provide the hardware foundation of Europe's AI innovation and on top we need also the right infrastructure to meet growing demand. And as we know Cloud and AI they are very essential for our everyday life. So using smartphone without the data center it's like keeping it always on airplane mode. So we clearly need data centers where data is stored and processed.
And in our AI Continent Action Plan we promised already to triple sustainable data center capacity in Europe in the next five seven years. And the Cloud and AI Development Act is delivering on this promise. It has three objectives. First, foster research, development and innovation in cloud and AI technologies. Also ensure that we have sustainable computing capacity in Europe.
And third, reduce dependencies that undermine our competitiveness and sovereignty. We want to make sure that our most critical sensitive data is stored in Europe. Some of the proposals proposed measures they include ambitious grand challenges for industry to drive next generation of cutting-edge and highly sustainable AI technologies, also streamlined deployment conditions for resource-efficient data centers and a clear four-level framework for public sector sovereign cloud and AI services. This framework will allow cloud and AI services to demonstrate their level of sovereignty against clear criteria including infrastructure location, software supply chain control and cybersecurity. And the Commission is also here leading by example because we very recently concluded our Commission's own successful 180 million tender for sovereign cloud services.
And this shows very clearly that there are reliable European providers who can deliver high-quality services. And in this package we have also looked at the open source which is crucial for tech sovereignty because it reduces our dependence on external vendors, strengthens our security, transparency and innovation.
In Europe, we are in good position because we already have a very strong open source ecosystem with more than 3 million contributors. Yet, every day, not every day, but every year, we spend more than 260 billion euros on non-EU digital products and services. So it's time that we harness what we have in Europe to give us control over our digital future. And this is what the open source strategy aims to do. It aims to strengthen the autonomy of users, companies, and public administrations by helping to develop and adopt sovereign EU alternatives, also strengthening open standards and international outreach, and supporting the use of open source by public sector.
Very importantly, the package is complemented by a strategic roadmap for digitalization and AI in energy because we know that data centers, AI, and cloud computing, they are very crucial for smarter and greener energy systems, but they also demand vast amounts of energy. And with this roadmap, we are taking this challenge very seriously. We are setting out concrete measures for digitalized energy system in which AI will support the delivery of secure, clean, and competitive energy. Honorable members, all of these initiatives I just presented, of course, they require investments. While our global competitors, they are pouring massive amounts of cash into this sector, Europe is facing a critical investment gap, as we know.
It's estimated that this package what we were now proposing, it means about 400 billion of investments. And of course, our forthcoming competitiveness fund in next MFF will be very important tool. And public funding always, it's a good start, but we know that we urgently need also private capital to step up and fund our largest, most strategic projects. And this is why the Commission will also now launch a consultation with our member states, the EIB Group, and also other key stakeholders on establishing a European equity capacity. The goal is to ensure that our best tech companies get the funding they need to compete and win on the global stage.
We know that many, many of our member states, they have their own sovereignty funds, but of course, the scale what is needed, it must be much bigger. And that's why we have to really come together in the European level also to look that we have possibilities to invest really to equity of our very strategic companies in Europe and be sure that they are able to scale up their businesses in Europe and also globally. And we are working towards that. Honorable members, this is the European model of tech sovereignty, not isolation, but a Europe that invests, innovates, competes, and protects our interests. I look very much forward to working with all of you to turn this ambitious package into the reality.
And now I'm very much looking forward to hear your comments and questions.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Virkkunen, and thank you for sticking very precisely to the time. I'm sure our colleagues in the Parliament would demonstrate exactly exactly the same manner. So, we're moving to the to the Q&A part of this debate. As as until now, we're going to have 90 seconds for each intervention with immediate 90 seconds answers and the possibility for 30 seconds follow-up.
So without further ado, we start with EPP and Ms. Sala, the floor is yours.
Kiitos Henna. I welcome the package and I want to thank Henna for your good work. The aim is good. However, I would have liked to hear more clearly from the Commission that the US is not a trusted partner anymore for European public sector, like China isn't.
Henna Virkkunen
Also, we must clearly define what tech sovereignty means in practice. In my opinion, it should mean that Europe retains effective control over its critical technologies, infrastructure, data, and strategic capabilities. Streamlined procedures are much needed for data centers, but these advantages must be reserved for European data and cloud companies. Critical technologies and infrastructure must be predominantly owned, governed, developed, and operated within Europe and remain under European legal control. Also, we will not create demand through political declaration.
When we want European technologies to scale, the real opportunity lies in public procurement, cross-border industry cooperation, and putting pressure urgently on our cross-border public and private investments. The European public sector, including the EU institutions, must start choosing European technology as soon as possible, like France does. So my question is about leading by example: when will the EU Commission start using sovereign European cybersecurity tech and select open-source software in the EU institutions? Thank you.
Yes, thank you very much. Yes, starting from the Commission, we have also inside in Commission, we have prepared also a roadmap on tech sovereignty. And first very important step on that was that when we were having this Cloud Tender, 180 million euros, it's the biggest in Europe so far, and we were selecting four European cloud service providers. And we have identified 100 different services where we are also looking now European alternatives, so the work is ongoing. We want also look that we don't have risky dependencies and always when we are doing procurement, we are also looking how we can boost our own innovative companies and how we can also support really the developments and use all the opportunities we have in our own tech companies, and especially we are focusing really to open-source solutions.
So of course it's important that European Commission and all the public administrative entities, they are doing their role because via public procurement we can of course boost greatly our own homegrown technologies. It's estimated really that we are buying services from outside of European Union as a whole Europe by more than 260 billion euros every year. And of course if we are allocating part of that to our own markets, it's giving a great boost. But very shortly, I'm already speaking too long, but I would like to a little bit explain also that how we are creating demand with this package. And very important part is now the definition of sovereign cloud, that what does it mean to have sovereign cloud service.
And we have four levels here. And especially when we speak about the highest levels of sovereignty, it's very important that it's only European companies who are providing this service, it's fully controlled by Europeans, and also the data is localized in Europe. And this is now creating of course demand also for European data centers. And when we are building more European data centers, it means that we are also creating more demand for AI chips. So everything is very much connected in this package because we have to look the whole stack, whole hardware stack.
And via these cloud services, via these sovereign cloud services where we have very strict criteria, especially when it comes to this higher level of services, there we have only European companies who can be validated to produce these services, and it means that we need more European data centers and we need also more European AI chips.
Henna Virkkunen
Yes, thank you. I would like to follow up with a concern about European data sovereignty. In my view, the US National Security Strategy has made it clear that the EU is not a trusted partner for them, rather the opposite. And I think that the EU should be prepared to question how valid our EU-US data transfers agreement still is. But was it intentionally left out completely from this package?
And could you tell us your personal view about the current state of the agreement? Thanks.
Yes, we have agreement with USA when it comes to data and of course we have our own GDPR rules and our own Data Act also in the European Union. And for us it's very important that our citizens' data, that it's always stored in a secure way. And this is also the reason here why we have now presented this sovereignty criteria for sovereign cloud services because when we speak about really important sectors of our societies, when we speak about critical sectors like NIS2 Directive, all these sectors under it, when we speak about external and internal security, external borders, about our defense, about our justice and law enforcement, it's very important that we are also using more strict criteria who is controlling the cloud services. We see that it should be Europeans who are always controlling these services and the data has to be localized in Europe. So this is very clear criteria from our side because we want that our citizens can trust also that how their data is handled.
Matthias Ecke
Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Wirkkunen, so this is Europe's digital independence day, isn't it? We are really looking forward to this presentation and everyone was quite excited. And what we have now on the table, I think, is a comprehensive approach: cloud, semiconductors, open source. And I appreciate also that open source strategy is part of that entire approach.
But now it will be for the upcoming debate and discussions here in the Parliament, it will be important to really ensure effective demand because I fully share the analysis that Chips Act 1 was a supply-side measure largely and it was like partly successful. By the 20% it was not successful, but it did support some of very important investments. But now we want demand side. I understand that part of that is that you want to link European-produced AI chips to our semiconductor system. So my question would be how would you, yeah, how would you generate that?
How would you finance that? I've read from an open foundry for advanced silicon manufacturing capabilities. So given the enormous investment that we need, is this partly public-private funding? Should the European budget be part of that? And my second question is about the crisis mechanism because I understand that there might be situations occurring where the Commission is intervening in the supply chain decisions of companies in Europe.
So how would you like select the risk-prone sectors and how would that mechanism work? What does it mean for the industry concerned? Thank you.
Henna Virkkunen
Yes, thank you very much. And this is correct that the new element in our Chips Act is very much that we are focusing now much more to demand side because the current one is focusing very much to supply side, but we have to also look that we are creating demand.
Especially we are now planning to facilitate more close cooperation with the automotive sector, especially with defense, also with the data center, and also with the telecom industry. Because they are they are also creating demand for more advanced chips. So we want to bring together the demand side and with the the semiconductor design and manufacturer side. And also when it comes to this crisis management, this is a part that it's very much we we will keep the the current framework of Chips Act, but the new element is now that we are adding some new elements on the pre-crisis situation that we are not entering to crisis. Because we had already this crisis protocol, which we see that it's it's quite good.
We haven't used it never yet, but we we have been thinking I think very well there how the procedures should go. But of course we should avoid that kind of situation that we are not going to crisis and that's why we have added we have been adding different elements how to avoid also that we are not going to the crisis. And especially of course it's important to have better information sharing among different stakeholders because still these semiconductor supply chains, they are very vulnerable. And it's important that the key players that they are also focusing to that that they have alternatives and they are not dependent on on one source. Because if some kind of export export control is taking a place or there can be also some natural disasters like earthquake or then factory can be burned down, so you should be also prepared for that kind of situations.
So now we are more also focusing to that the all time to preparedness and resilience and the the pre-crisis situation. So these are now new element, but the crisis protocol we didn't change from the current Chips Act because we think that it's it's very well well organized already the idea there.
Matthias Ecke
Yes, just just one question about you said you bring together the demand side with the supply side. What so how binding is that? So what does it actually mean? Do we talk about like legal requirements, about quotas, about maybe the requirement to have a second source from within the Union if the user supplier from outside of the Union, or is it more like a kind of a marketplace where they pool demand and exchange demand and supply?
Henna Virkkunen
Yeah, of course it has to be very voluntary when we are bringing different stakeholders together. But now when we are speaking about these investments which are needed, for example with with the data centers, when we are estimating that we have to triple the capacity in the coming years, it means about 200 billion of investments. So it's clear that we can't cover this with EU funds, so and not not the member states and it's not also idea. This has to be mainly private of course investments and we have to build often that kind of public-private partnerships also when we speak about new technologies. And with the with the Chips Act 2.0 when we want to bring together our demand side and also the designers and manufacturers, I think that these are so huge investments what we are speaking when we speak about manufacturing of AI chips, it means that several member states and several companies has to really come together and create consortiums around these investments.
And that's why we we have been now identifying that especially automotive, defense, which is now growing of course very fast and also the data center part, but also telecoms where we are very strong in Europe, that these are the key sectors to where we have to now focus and really also bring bring the players together there.
Elena Donazzan
Thank you President, I will speak in Italian. Grazie per questa presentazione di tanti atti, alcune questioni sono però rilevanti rispetto alla complessità. Il tema dei semiconduttori è fondamentale per tanti prodotti. I semiconduttori, come anche lei ha rilevato, sono la parte oggi prioritaria ed è corretto che noi si vada a vedere come ridurre il divario che c'è tra noi e tutti i nostri competitor. La prima domanda è perché che cosa non ha funzionato nel primo Chips Act se siamo oggi a fare il Chips Act 2 e soprattutto come potrà essere rilevante per gli i settori strategici.
Lei ne ha definiti alcuni, tra cui la difesa, l'automotive. Segnalo che sull'auto il disastro è in corso e rischiamo di non essere pronti per auto europee perché non ci sarà più un settore dell'automotive. Vale lo stesso per l'elettrodomestico. Oggi la crisi è evidente, costa molto meno importare un prodotto finito dalla Cina, non solo i semiconduttori che già noi non produciamo. Cresciamo poco.
La seconda domanda è cresciamo poco e abbiamo poca produttività. Gli Stati Uniti hanno raddoppiato la loro produttività, crescono a due cifre perché hanno investito molto sull'intelligenza artificiale. Bene qui che si investa sulle risorse umane, ma rischiamo di non avere poi una catena industriale capace di assorbirla perché non ci sarà più l'industria. E come quindi questo suo Act può essere rilevante per il mondo dell'industria, grazie.
Henna Virkkunen
Yes, thank you very much. Many parts of the Chips Act, they have been working very well and especially we have been really been successful in that that more than 52 billion investments has been done and there is commitments of 80 billion investments to semiconductor part. But then also in the same time, we see that there is some some problems. First is that we still have overdependence on third countries for semiconductor design and manufacturing and also we have insufficient crisis preparedness capabilities, so we are not really having that kind of preparedness when it comes to resilience of our supply chains. And these are especially the parts what we are now addressing by updating this Chips Act.
And then the third element is very much also that the technology has been now it has been developing very fast. Already in last year, AI chips, the the growing part of AI chips, it was like 30 percent of the market growth in last year in semiconductor industry. And really now it has been estimated that in 2030, so very very soon, already 70 percent of the semiconductor markets will be AI chips. And that's why it's important also that we are now addressing this part here that we have to build our own capacities in AI chips because it's very much driving all the innovations. And we can't really speak about tech sovereignty if we are not capable to design and manufacture also more advanced chips ourselves in the future and also AI chips.
And that's why we are now creating also a demand for that in the European markets with our sovereign cloud criteria and also this is boosting really investments to European data centers and this creates demand for for these more advanced chips.
Elena Donazzan
Sì, solo una raccomandazione perché lei l'aveva già detto quella del 70% dei Chips Act, così come è evidente i 260 miliardi come lei ha dichiarato che oggi sono spesa che va fuori dall'Europa. La mia preghiera è che si ascolti di più il mondo che produce perché c'è una certa arroganza soprattutto nella parte tecnica delle nostra della nostra Commissione, perché per quanto si sostenga o meno questa è la nostra Commissione europea, che spesso dirige dall'alto ciò che è giusto e ciò che non lo è e non si capisce l'effettiva poi ricaduta sul mondo produttivo industriale.
Senza manifatturiero non avremo neanche Chips Act.
Henna Virkkunen
Thank you very much, this is of course always very key element that we have to listen the stakeholders and have very close cooperation with them, also to understand what kind of challenges they are facing and how we should really address this and what kind of actions are needed from the European level. So on semiconductor side we have of course our semiconductor board and we have also very close cooperation with key stakeholders in this sector and I think it's very much of course the crucial part if we want to be successful in the future that we have to really work closely with the industry and with the with the designers and with the manufacturing and demand side also to understand that how we can help these industries to invest and scale and grow in the European markets because these are crucial for our tech sovereignty.
Christophe GRUDLER
I will speak in French. Merci Madame la Présidente. Madame la Commissaire, tout d'abord permettez-moi de vous remercier au nom des citoyens que que je représente. Depuis plusieurs années, ils s'inquiètent de nos dépendances numériques. Et je pense qu'il faut aussi savoir reconnaître quand il y a un changement d'approche.
La Commission envoie aujourd'hui enfin un signal, l'Europe ne peut plus dépendre des autres pour ses services numériques. Les achats publics et l'open source jouent ici un rôle essentiel. Un exemple concret en France, la gendarmerie française est passée sous Linux, développant sa propre distribution. Résultat, près d'un demi-milliard d'euros d'économie et un contrôle direct sur les données sans aucune interférence. Dans vos annonces d'aujourd'hui, je vois un accent mis sur l'IA et le cloud pour soutenir les solutions européennes.
Mais je n'ai pas l'impression que vos mesures poussent directement, on va dire, les administrations à utiliser d'autres outils numériques qui sont qui soient sous contrôle européen. Pouvez-vous peut-être donner des mesures concrètes qui permettraient de convaincre peut-être les administrations publiques notamment d'agir dans ce sens ? Et un dernier point sur l'open source, les mesures oublient un point clé, nous devons encourager les contributions européennes à l'open source. Car juste pousser à utiliser des logiciels open source mais où toutes les contributions sont chinoises ou américaines, ben ça n'a pas vraiment de sens et c'est pas vraiment de la souveraineté. Est-ce que vous proposez donc des mesures dans ce domaine, notamment dans Digital Europe ?
Merci.
Henna Virkkunen
Thank you very much for this question and we really see that public procurement this is very strong tool of course how we can boost our European homegrown technologies and that's why we want to encourage of course all the public procurement entities to use open source solutions and our open source strategy is for that. But what is obligatory according our proposal is our cloud and AI development act and especially always when we are using public cloud services that we should really also look that what kind of sovereignty is needed for different services.
And when we speak about more critical fields of our societies like defense and security, it's clear that this can be only European providers who can provide these cloud services and the data has to be controlled by Europeans always. So by setting this clear criteria and also making sure that we are able to control the service always, nobody is having that kind of kill switch opportunity to our critical services, it's greatly now creating European demand for these services. And we know already that we have tens of cloud service providers also who are Europeans, but they are often smaller and maybe not so visible in the markets, but we have very high quality services already there. And CADA has also, CADA is this cloud and AI development act, has also EU added value included in article 32. It's obligatory really that in public procurement they have to always look also that how the tender has integrated also how tech development in the EU is also integrated to this tender.
So it's something that always now when we're doing public procurement we have to look the EU added value part.
Christophe GRUDLER
Merci, et une petite question rapide de follow-up, un mot sur le règlement MSS que vous avez présenté récemment. Les fréquences MSS de la bande 2 gigahertz sont une ressource stratégique de l'Union. Pourtant, vous savez que j'étais le rapporteur sur IRIS², voilà, pourtant malheureusement vous n'avez pas choisi d'attribuer directement une partie de ces fréquences sur le programme IRIS alors même que l'Union européenne a quand même financé le développement de services mobiles par satellite avec 300 millions d'euros qui ont été mis sur la table. 300 millions sur IRIS pour avoir des services mobiles par satellite, mais des services qui du coup n'auront pas de fréquence. Donc question simple, pourquoi ne pas avoir prévu de fréquences mobiles dédiées à IRIS² qui seront nécessaires pour nos militaires ou pour nos agences gouvernementales ?
Merci.
Henna Virkkunen
Thank you very much. This decision what we've adopted in last week, regulation from the Commission side about mobile satellite services, like you said, it's very important for us because this frequency, it can be used for commercial purposes and especially now when technology has developed that we have possibility to provide that kind of direct-to-device services directly to our mobile phones also via satellites, but also it's important for secure communication. And that is the reason why now we allocated this spectrum in the way that one third of the spectrum is allocated to secure communication. And two third is allocated to commercial use. But in the way that this security block, it's only European providers who can provide these services.
So it's only for European companies, for European entities. And then another of this commercial block, there is two blocks, one of them is only for European companies and the third block is also that non-Europeans can also apply this part.
So there's three blocks: one security communication, two for commercial use, and two of these blocks totally they are only for Europeans, really to boost our own capacity here. IRIS² is not having that kind of constellation who can operate in this spectrum. It's possible in the future if they are building that kind of constellation, and that's why IRIS² can also work in this secure communication part. And this is part of our proposal also, that IRIS can be and has to be integrated also to that. But we want also boost our own technologies here, and we see that European companies, they can also provide that kind of secure communication solutions, but IRIS has to be also integrated to that.
But currently IRIS is not having that kind of constellation who could operate in this spectrum, but maybe in the future.
Sergey Lagodinsky
Thank you so much, Madam Vice-President, nice to see you again here. We as a group have always been calling on sovereignty debate and sovereignty strategy, and we of course welcome the general direction, so thanks for this work. But of course, we wouldn't be Greens if we wouldn't see some substantial deficits, and I would like to highlight a couple of them and maybe you could react. Number one, on the Chips Act. This is absolutely right that we are placing emphasis now on demand and creating demand.
This is the absolutely correct way to do it. However, our understanding is that this demand that we are creating will rest on the gigafactories majorly. The problem is that for gigafactories you need AI chips of capacity of NVIDIA. We don't have those, and we will probably not have them, some providers say, up to ten years from now. It's a long process of developing European NVIDIA act.
So what happens there? Are we building gigafactories now or in ten years? I know the first phase will be this year, but the next phase, the big ones, will already be next year or in two years. It's not clear to me how this comes together. Number two, on cloud and development AI development act.
You will not be surprised we are very unhappy that the energy benchmarking has disappeared. In the leak it was there, now it is not there anymore. What is happening, when do you plan to publish mandatory energy efficiency standards? And look at the discussion in the United States, the discussion there is totally derailing and there is a backlash precisely because they don't have this. The other issue is the four-level assistance, and generally there is a trend of renationalization of this strategy.
The four-level assistance will be made by member states, not by our central European view. This is number one. Gigafactories will be built by member states. There are a lot of providers who would have loved to build a gigafactories between two countries, they cannot do it with your proposal. And the final one, you mentioned European equity capacity, how will this work to attract 800 billion?
Thank you.
Henna Virkkunen
Yes, thank you very much, and yes, now when we are investing to gigafactories and we haven't opened the official call yet, but we are expecting that we will anyway have the proposals where several member states and several companies has come together to propose to build that kind of gigafactory. And I think it's the case now in many technologies where we look the European capacities that our companies are often they are too small and also member states are too small to make that huge investments which are needed to semiconductor manufacturing, also to that satellite services, also to gigafactories.
So I think this really means that several member states often have to come together and several companies to be able to make these big investments. And when we are now building the first gigafactories, we are not able to produce the chips yet ourselves. That's why that's why we are relying on on third countries and companies which are coming outside of Europe. But as we know always, now already we have decided together with member states also to build 19 AI factories. And the work is ongoing.
But always with these supercomputers, AI factories, gigafactories, after some years, after four, five years, we have to replace these chips with the new technology. And we are expecting that on the next round, we will have already European technology. So so our plan is that after 2030, we should go to pilot production of AI chips also in the European Union. So this work is ongoing. So now first investments has been done also to AI factories, soon to gigafactories.
We have also very powerful supercomputers in the European Union. We want to triple our data center capacity. And all this means that we need more advanced chips in the future. And this is creating demand for us. With the energy part, I'm not sure if you were already here, because Commissioner Jørgensen was here earlier, and he was explaining this part because he's working with the energy label and with the package.
And it will also provide a picture of the energy used by data centers, because we of course, now when we say that we want to triple our data center capacity, it's very important that we are investing to best technologies. We are using the most energy efficient systems always. And also we are now encouraging the member states that they should create that kind of data center accelerator zones, where member states are also looking that this is a place where they can build a very energy efficient systems on data centers, because we want that our citizens can also trust that these developments, that they are sustainable when we look to environmental aspects. And we know that there's many countries globally where the citizens are already against data centers because they see that the energy prices are are high and maybe they are already also seeing blackouts, for example, in their electricity systems if everything is not well developed. So in Europe, we want that we are making these investments in sustainable way, and the member states are also preparing for that.
And we are doing it in coordinated manner. And we want to have we want to have transparency also of the energy used by these data centers. And Commissioner Jørgensen is currently working on that. And then with with the equity facility, this is a new element that we clearly see that we need in Europe, because we don't have that kind of that kind of opportunity that we can invest to equity. And of course, our new competitiveness fund will be very crucial and important.
It's also important step that now we have scale-up fund in the place. It means that we can also support our startups to scale up their businesses. But when we are speaking a big tickets, when we speak about the tens of billions of investments, it's also important that we are able to do that kind of anchor investment from our equity facility. And we can also crowd more private investors to join. Specially I'm looking our very critical technologies where we are strong, for example, our quantum quantum technologies where Europe is very strong.
We have very much potential now in our startups. But we see also that global investors, they are very interested into buy these promising companies. And that's why we should have really that kind of tools that we can invest also from the European side, our part from our equity facility, and we can also encourage private investors to come with us, that we can keep these very strategic technologies in Europe and they are able to scale up their businesses in Europe. So that kind of tool we are not having. Many member states, they have their own sovereign fund also, but often they are quite small.
So they are not able to do so big investments what are needed. And if we are comparing our our investments what we are able to do in the European level, if we are comparing that to USA and China, we see that we are lacking very much behind. So this is urgent need from our side really to focus to that.
Speaker 47
If you have a follow-up please be very brief because you spoke a longer before.
Sergey Lagodinsky
Yes I know I'm very very brief question. Do you also prescribe condition under which you will be investing this equity? Because I don't know for people from Brandenburg I just met with a group of Brandenburg folks I'm sure they will be very interested in keeping this investment in Europe and keeping it safe and sustainable. Do you have preconditions for that?
Henna Virkkunen
We don't have this equity facility yet but I see that there's urgent need for that and now we really have to look with member states and with the European Investment Bank and other relevant stakeholders how we can build that kind of mechanism also to European level. But from our perspective we should focus really to these sectors which are important for our economic security. So especially we are speaking about AI semiconductors quantum technologies and other relevant fields what we are mentioning in our economic security strategy where we have that kind of dependencies and which are strategically very important for for Europe. Also robotics could be for example one of those fields.
Per Klausen
Thank you and I will speak in Danish. Det var det var en god nyhed vi fik her om at Europaparlamentet skifter standard søgemaskine fra Google til den europæiske browser Qwant som er designet til at undgå sporing af bruger. Det er et vigtigt skridt fordi det har betydning i forhold til databeskyttelsen men jeg synes også det er et vigtigt signal om hvordan vi kan arbejde på at gøre os uafhængige af de amerikanske techgiganter. Og at det er vigtigt det synes jeg understreges hele tiden. Vi har set hvordan det lykkedes for USA at gennemføre sanktioner mod medlemmer af ICC som har haft betydning og de samme metoder kan jo tages i anvendelse overfor Europa.
Så jeg vil bare spørge kommissæren om hun ikke er enig i at en af de vigtigste ting vi kan gøre for at styrke vores teknologiske suverænitet det er en klar handlingsplan for at skifte offentlige IT-systemer til europæiske både i EU og i medlemslandene. Og det er ikke også om det ikke også er en af de bedste måder at støtte den europæiske teknologisektor på fordi de faktisk får opgaver skal lave projekter som de kan tjene penge på og sælge. Så det ville være mit spørgsmål til kommissæren.
Henna Virkkunen
Yes we have very much potential in Europe so I think it's also good news that we have everything what is needed to be competitive. So we have the talent here we have very strong industrial basis we have so much potential in our startups. We have more than 45,000 startups who are developing different often very critical technologies. And we can also use more open source and via that we can boost our own homegrown technologies. And I think it's important that every organization is really looking also that how they can via public procurement how they can boost our own European companies our innovations investments in this field.
That kind of very critical dependencies and that's why with our Cloud and Development Act we've been setting very clear criteria because we want to be sure that we are in all circumstances we are able to continue our activities, that nobody isn't having that kind of kill switch possibility to our services and we have to be able to control now in the normal days in in our economic actions, but we have to also think about crisis situation, that how in crisis situation how we are how we are able to continue all our activities if we have very critical dependencies. And that's why it's important that in critical fields we are really controlling the technologies ourselves.
Per Klausen
Tak for dit svar. Men jeg vil også bare sige, at det jeg synes vi savner så, det er en klar plan for, hvordan vi faktisk kan sikre, at vi får erstattet amerikansk eller anden teknologi på det område, hvordan vi får det erstattet med europæisk teknologi. Altså en klar plan, en handlingsplan for, hvordan vi kommer derhen. Det synes jeg ville være rigtig godt, hvis det også indgik i Kommissionens planer.
Henna Virkkunen
Yes, it was a little bit also criticized here earlier that we are giving now so much so much is now depending of Member States and their governments, but especially because our our package is based to our security and resilience, this is also clearly something that Member States they they have to also address themselves because Member States when we speak about public governance, they are organized a little bit different manner in different Member States how the public services and governance is organized and what kind of risks there might be. And that's why we have that proposal that we have obligation for the Member States to do risk assessment of their public cloud services and they have to really look that they are able to control the service when we speak about critical fields. For the industries we are now giving recommendation here to do risk assessment of cloud services, especially those industries who are working in the critical fields which are which are defined in our NIS2 directive and there is 18 different sectors. So those companies who are operating in these sectors like healthcare, energy, water, financing, that kind of services, it's important that they are doing also risk assessment. Of course we know that many of the companies and many governments they have been doing it already and they have been also looking this.
And I think it's important message also that we have we have European services also and high quality services and that's why we have to also give more visibility for them and really also publish that kind of like register of these services which are available. And especially when it comes also to these cloud services there will be also that kind of register of the cloud services that which level of service each cloud service provider is able to provide.
Sarah KNAFO
Merci beaucoup, je vais parler en français. Madame la Commissaire, au risque de surprendre, je veux commencer par vous féliciter. Vos propositions sur la souveraineté du cloud et sur l'open source vont dans le bon sens. Ce sont des idées que je défendais dans mon rapport initial sur la souveraineté technologique et je suis heureuse de les retrouver ici. Mon regret c'est qu'elles ne vont pas assez loin et que trop souvent la tentation de tout régler par plus de normes reprend le dessus.
Un exemple : vous préparez une notation des data centers. Un centre alimenté par le nucléaire y serait moins bien noté qu'un centre raccordé à des éoliennes qui ne tournent en moyenne qu'un quart du temps. Le reste du temps c'est du gaz, du charbon ou l'arrêt pur et simple. Nous nous apprêtons donc à mieux noter une énergie intermittente qu'une énergie pilotable et décarbonée.
Chaque fois que la règle prétend choisir à la place de l'entrepreneur, elle décourage l'investissement. Alors laissons les entreprises choisir. Elles s'installeront là où l'énergie est abondante, compétitive et décarbonée, en France par exemple, grâce au nucléaire. Et pendant que nous bâtissons une grille de notation, regardons ce qui se passe ailleurs. Aux États-Unis, les géants de la tech investissent des dizaines de milliards dans des capacités de calcul qui dépassent à elles seules ce que produit notre continent.
Pendant que d'autres bâtissent l'infrastructure du siècle, nous débattons d'un système de notation. Saurons-nous rester dans la course ? Dans ce contexte ultra-concurrentiel, un mot enfin sur la préférence européenne dans la commande publique. Quand l'Union achète, elle achète encore trop souvent américain. L'an dernier, la Commission confiait 400 millions d'euros de services cloud à Microsoft.
Nos champions n'ont pas besoin de subventions, ils ont besoin de commandes. Alors Madame la Commissaire, deux questions courtes : la notation des data centers pénalise-t-elle vraiment notre énergie la plus décarbonée ? Et dans quelle mesure pouvez-vous vous engager à ce que la commande publique européenne fasse travailler nos entreprises et pas celles de nos concurrents ?
Henna Virkkunen
Yes, thank you very much. In this spring, European Commission was publishing our strategy on modular nuclear reactors, small modular small nuclear reactors. And there we were identifying that there's three three key sectors where it's important also to test now these new new technologies. And they were data centers, heating systems and also chemical industry. So we saw that these are the most important user cases.
So we see that there's lot of potential when we are combining data centers with small modular reactors. And first time ever, Commission is also preparing that we we are able to also finance this research and development work for the nuclear small modular reactors. I'm sure that Commissioner Jørgensen, who was here earlier and who was speaking about the energy labeling of data centers, he said that he wants that it's technology neutral also. That what he has also announced earlier today in the in the press conference.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Please go ahead with the follow-up. No follow-up. Okay. Then we are going to have sufficient time to cover the seven speakers for the KGDI. Please stay strict to the time.
We're starting with Mr. Schenk, one minute.
Andreas Schenk
Vielen Dank, Frau Kommissarin. Freue mich, dass wir jetzt über den Chips Act 2 auch diskutieren können. Freue mich, dass Sie den Ansatz einer gesamten Wertschöpfungskette, nachdem wir beim Chips Act 1 ja vor allem auf die Produktion, dass wir jetzt auch das Ganze. Und ich freue mich sehr, dass Sie auch den Gedanken aufgenommen haben, dass wir Cluster stärken müssen. Chipindustrie findet in Clustern statt mit Forschung, mit Zulieferern, mit einer dezidierten dort Infrastruktur.
Und Sie führen etwas ein mit dem Semiconductor Regions of Excellence. Was wird sich damit verbinden? Ich erwarte da, dass wir da schnellere Genehmigungsverfahren, besseren Zugang zu Fördermitteln, zu strategischen Projekten, dass wir wirklich die Cluster, die wir haben, dass wir die damit auch schneller weiterentwickeln können, weil das diejenigen sind aus meiner Sicht, die uns wirklich auch an die Spitze bringen können und das, was wir erreichen wollen mit diesem Chips Act in Europa, dann auch schneller erreichen können.
Nicolás González Casares
Gracias, presidenta. Gracias, comisaria Virkkunen. Supongo que usted ha leído la encíclica papal del Papa León que nos recuerda, por ejemplo, que debemos cuidar nuestra casa común que es la Tierra y que los recursos que necesita la inteligencia artificial no son ilimitados. Y por esta razón, yo creo que debemos tener en cuenta las derivadas energéticas de los centros de datos y de la inteligencia artificial.
Y estoy pensando que aquí en este paquete de soberanía falta el rating scheme, es decir, ¿dónde están los requerimientos de sostenibilidad para los centros de datos? Hacemos el paquete ahora y lo derivamos para el futuro. Yo creo, yo no entiendo cómo se hace esto, porque desde luego lo que debemos exigir es que esto no haga descarrilar nuestros objetivos de descarbonización, que hagamos un consumo eficiente de los recursos, que la competición por las conexiones energéticas sea en igualdad para todos y que alguien nos explique cómo abriendo una autopista para centros de datos que provean o que usen energía para empresas norteamericanas vamos a mejorar nuestra soberanía energética. Es una pregunta para mí crucial y que nadie responde. Y por último, ¿ha visto alguna vez, comisaria, un small modular reactor conectado a la red en su vida?
Speaker 56
Yes, thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioner. Microchips are now as strategic importance as energy or raw materials. And technological sovereignty does not mean that we have to close ourselves in Europe. It means that we have to be strong enough not to be dependent on others. That's something else.
And that is why we must continue to invest strategic assets in Europe. We have, for instance, the research center of IMEC, you were there. We have the technology of ASML. And that is how we can protect our economy without protectionism. Industrialization and commercialization matter, but everything starts with research and development.
And so I have two questions for you. How crucial is research and development to the success of the new Chips Act? And are you considering additional pilot lines on top of those launched already on the first Chips Act? And second question is about financing. Will you actively feed the MFF negotiations with concrete proposals to ensure that the future European Competitiveness Fund provides sufficient resources to truly deliver on the ambitions of the new Chips Act?
Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Ms. Morillo, please stick to the time, everyone, thank you, you have the floor.
Eva Morillo
Gracias, presidenta, vicepresidenta. Muchas gracias. Por fin hoy, después de varios aplazamientos, hemos podido conocer el tan esperado paquete de soberanía tecnológica. Y después de una primera lectura, tengo un par de preguntas, sobre todo centradas en la parte de cloud. ¿Cómo garantiza la Comisión que el sistema propuesto de niveles de soberanía cloud realmente va a reducir la dependencia estratégica y la exposición a legislaciones extraterritoriales, si parece que en la práctica este modelo sigue permitiendo que los proveedores no europeos atiendan entre un 70 a un 99% de la demanda cloud del sector público?
¿Y cómo evitará, cómo evitaremos incoherencias entre las evaluaciones nacionales de soberanía y una posible intervención posterior de la Comisión? Y en segundo lugar, quería preguntarle que cómo garantiza la Comisión que este marco no solo gestione dependencias, sino que también impulse un ecosistema cloud europeo verdaderamente competitivo, con incentivos reales para que los proveedores europeos puedan escalar y seguir ganando cuota de mercado de manera significativa, en lugar de permanecer en una posición marginal frente a los grandes hyperscalers? Es crucial que evitemos que esta ley dé lugar a un marco de licitaciones públicas demasiado amplio y que no necesariamente se traduzca en un aumento real de la cuota de mercado europea. Gracias.
Speaker 55
Thank you, Chair, and Commissioner, thank you very much for your presentation. I'm pro-European businesses. I like European businesses to succeed, to grow, to take market share, to employ more people in Europe and build prosperity for all of us. At the same time, I'm pro-market, meaning that I embrace the competition. I like us to compete because I know that that will give the best products at the cheapest prices for consumers.
That means that I'm necessarily not against US companies or Indian companies or companies from any country, basically. But we have some security issues that are sensitive, and that's come to data, of course. And that's why I think your four levels of data is important. However, I understand that the data security will be assessed by the Member States. Will that not create a situation where we have different rules in different Member States?
Second of all, on the open source issue, I also like open source. But I like proprietary as well, and I think European businesses should be able to choose open source or proprietary. Why do you want to hinder businesses to choose one of the one of either? And my second is only one. Think small first is a principle that the European Commission is working on.
How does that reflect in this proposal? Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Mr. Eriksson, we have two more speakers only and we're turning back to the Commission. Thank you, Commissioner, thank you for giving us extra five minutes. I hope that's fine.
Jonas Eriksson
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioner. We can all agree that we need more European alternatives here. However, we do not want to become a technological colony where Big Tech establishes itself on its own terms, where energy prices skyrocket for our citizens and municipalities are left to pick up the bill. It's great that the Commission proposes that all data centers should be sustainable. It's great that they are also proposing that waste heat must come to use.
But data centers must also be obligated to contribute to new energy production. They cannot simply consume what others have built. So my question to you, Commissioner Virkkunen, is if the Commission is working on any demands for data centers to also contribute to the production of the energy that they are so heavily on consuming. Thank you.
Angelika Niebler
Thanks, Chair, and thanks, Mrs. Vice-President, for presenting this huge tech sovereignty package today. I will not comment, I will only ask questions and I will concentrate on Gaia-X. I fully support the objectives, but I also have some doubts as regards the measures and the mechanisms which had been proposed. And I'd like to come back on the issue of the sovereignty framework and the four Union assurance levels. In concrete, so let's let's look at the US hyperscalers.
If I read the text correctly, so level four and in all likelihood level three, that's out for the US hyperscalers. They cannot, you know, be within this these levels. If that's true, I wanted just to know, you know, did you have an assessment or did you do an assessment what does it mean for our transatlantic partnership if we go this very straightforward way? And secondly, I'm just wondering looking at my public administration at home, you know, I think 90 90% of everything which is used in my in our public administration is technology from hyperscalers. So I just wonder as to whether that is really realistic or in other words, is your proposal not too radical, you know, in order to to implement it properly?
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Virkkunen, for being with us. You've referred several times to the work that you do together with Commissioner Jørgensen. So we really hope that, that we're going to manage to have proper investment and growth of the data centers and AI applications without putting additional constraints on the energy system and the electricity grid. So you can count on us on that.
And now I'm giving you the floor to answer the many questions that have been addressed in the second round.
Henna Virkkunen
Thank you so much for, for everybody for your very, very good questions and, and priorities you were underlining. First, for Member Schenk about this, who was underlining how important these excellence regions are. And I agree that when we speak about that kind of industry like semiconductor industry, it's very crucial that we have talented people, research, development, also all the knowledge, capacity, and also environmental possibilities also to, to take investments to these regions. So we are encouraging, of course, the regions who has very much knowledge and talent, skills, industries in this field, that they could also be that kind of, or they could be nominated as excellence regions and then they could also more easily also attract investments. And this same comes to Member Beger's, like, because you were underlining very much the role of what, for example, IMEC and, and other very key players are having in our semiconductor industry.
So of course, everything what we are doing has to be based to our strengths, where we are strong already. And these stakeholders like IMEC and ASML what you mentioned, of course, they are very, very crucial in our ecosystem. And always this is very much based to research and development, everything what we are doing. And especially when we speak about very high quality, advanced chips, so of course massive investments has to be done to, to research and development side here. Member Warnborn was underlining the pro-market, of course, approach here.
And what is the reason also why we have set it this criteria of sovereign cloud? It's coming especially from our security and resilience needs, resilience needs what we are having. In our proposal, it's, it's really the case that it's the member states who should carry out their risk assessment because they are the best ones really also to identify their own risks with their systems and what kind of cloud services they are buying and for what kind of purposes. But here we are also encouraging member states work, working very closely together and especially these assessment bodies who are, who are national authorities, that they are working together because often these cloud service providers, they are operating cross-border. And that's why it's important that we have also European coordination.
And after that, we will also publish this European register of different companies and their, like, the level what they are able to reach with their, their services when we look our tech sovereignty. But we are very much having the approach that we want to support our member states and we want to encourage to close cooperation. And Commission will, will support and if needed, of course, we are coming also then, and anyway we are coming now with the guidelines for member states that how this should be done. And also if needed, we have also possibilities to also, also act with the, with the other, other tools. With the, for the Member González Casares about the sustainability of data centers.
We are very closely working, of course, with Commissioner Jørgensen, who was here earlier, and Vice-President Ribera, because we want to be sure that all the investments that are done to data centers, that they are sustainable and that we are using always the best, most energy-efficient technologies, because we want that our citizens can really trust to these technologies and environmental impact of these will be as environmentally friendly as possible. Member Sánchez-Murillo was underlining the importance really to boost our European cloud service providers, our European companies. And this is really the situation currently, that 70% of our cloud markets, it's covered by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. So these three companies, they are covering 70% of our cloud market. Next 15% is other American companies, and only 15% European companies.
So we have to really create also more demand for European services, that they are also able to compete in these markets, because we know that now how these technologies are working currently globally, these very big tech companies, they are having very dominant position in the markets, because they have so much tools, of course, so much services, and they are very strong in our markets. That's why we have, for example, Digital Markets Act in Europe, that we want to make sure that we have more level playing field also, and the dominant players, they are not able to block other ones from the market. So that's why we have special obligations also for the gatekeepers in our markets. But this is something that we will continue to work, and this is also our small first, like Member Warborn was underlining, that when we speak about other companies, often they are quite small if we are comparing them to these hyperscalers. And that's why when we are boosting our own public procurement, when we are really also setting the obligation that we have to have also strict sovereignty criteria in critical services, of course these are boosting our own homegrown technologies and our own companies, which are also providing very good quality of services often, but they are smaller and not so visible and known in the markets.
Member Eriksson was also underlining very much the importance to have that kind of fair markets when we are not creating that kind of like monopolies in the markets, and that is exactly what we want to do also with this initiative. Member Niebler was asking that is this realistic what we are proposing here when we are looking really the very high presence of the hyperscalers in our cloud markets. How we have now set these four levels of assurance in the sovereign cloud, we see that the first level, which is covering all the public services, it's that kind of level where is not so high risk and also self-assessment of the services is also only needed from the service providers, and this is a level where many companies can participate. But then when we are coming more up, there is more rules about the control of the technologies, about the data also of these and really the ownership also of the companies. And it's also more difficult for companies which are coming from other jurisdictions to meet these targets.
And especially when we speak about level four, it's only European companies. And level three, it's very difficult for US-owned companies to reach this level now because of US Cloud Act. It's not in line with our obligations. So it's difficult for them to reach this third level. But of course, I'm not the one who is doing the auditing, so it's the auditing bodies, of course, then who needs to have that kind of assurance also from their side, but now this is our estimation.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you Commissioner Virkkunen for this very meaningful and rich in content and specific details discussion today. And I want to express our special gratitude to the translators who stayed extra extra time for for us to finish our debate. Thank you so much. We really appreciate that. And I wish you a pleasant evening until our next meeting on the 24th of January.
Speaker 61
Good morning, colleagues. I would like to welcome you to this ITRE meeting. I would like to ask you to take your seats. We have a very busy agenda today. And we will start with the adoption of the agenda.
The agenda is adopted. Chair's announcements. The meeting is being webstreamed. Interpretation is available in all languages except for Maltese and Slovenian. And I would like to inform you that the deadline for amendments for the opinion on the implementation of the 2018 Geo-blocking Regulation in the Digital Single Market has been set for the 21st of September at 12:00.
Approval of minutes of meetings. The minutes of the 22nd and 23rd of May 2023 are approved. The minutes of the 28th and 29th of June 2023 are approved. The minutes of the 10th of July 2023 are approved. And now we move to the votes.
I would like to ask you to take your seats and to prepare your voting cards. The first vote is on the draft report on the establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe's net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem, the Net Zero Industry Act. The rapporteur is Mr. Christian Ehler. We will start with the vote on the request for a split vote on compromise amendment 1. The vote is open.
The vote is closed. The request is rejected. We will now vote on compromise amendment 1. The vote is open. The vote is closed.
The compromise amendment is adopted. We will now vote on compromise amendment 2. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The compromise amendment is adopted.
We will now vote on compromise amendment 3. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The compromise amendment is adopted.
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