The year 2025 will show whether the European Union is able to use its new strategy to put its industry in order and to continue along the path mapped out over the past five years in the European Green Deal (green deal), or whether growing global competition and protectionist pressures will force the EU to significantly weaken the key areas of its sustainability policy. All of the above will, of course, also have a substantial effect on the situation and the political agenda here in Latvia.
The new European Commission will use its first 100 working days (until mid-March) to draw up proposals for strengthening industry, to secure the European Union's competitiveness in comparison with other parts of the world, and to help transform the agriculture and food sector. In addition, the Commission must move quickly enough to draft a legislative proposal on the greenhouse gas emission reduction target for 2040, so that the EU can use it when updating its climate plan under the Paris Agreement ahead of the next UN climate change conference, COP30, in Brazil.
The appetite for pursuing an ambitious climate policy, which undeniably demands considerable effort from the public, has diminished across the European Union. In many countries support is going to right-wing parties that object to the strict action on implementing the green deal that was set out in the previous period. The governments of some member states and political groups in the European Parliament are already trying to water down several important areas of green deal policy, such as the ban on internal combustion engines by 2035, fleet emission limits for cars, and the new emissions trading system for transport and buildings (EU ETS II).
Elections in the larger EU countries, such as Germany and Poland, along with instability in the French government, are dampening so-called ambitious decision-making on climate and making progress on implementation during the transition period more difficult.
Heated debate in the European Union over competitiveness, energy prices and the 2040 climate targets
Ever since Mario Draghi's report, the word “competitiveness” has been on almost everyone's lips within the European information “bubble”. Applied to Europe's energy sector, it means bringing down energy prices that are two to three times higher than in the United States and China. This will be one of the main tasks for the new Energy Commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, and at the same time the central issue requiring his close attention at the start of his term. Reducing energy prices, along with fostering innovation, cutting dependency and decarbonising, will be central to the so-called clean industrial deal, which the European Commission plans to publish on 26 February 2025.
Alongside this, the question of security of energy supply and energy independence from Russia is high on the agenda. Together with energy prices, both of these issues will also feature in the political agenda of Poland, which took over the presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 January. As the head of Poland's Permanent Representation to the EU, Ambassador Agnieszka Bartol, said at a press conference, she expects very lively discussions on these matters.
Bartol took the opportunity to rebut what she sees as a myth within the European “bubble” that Poland is a climate-sceptic country: “That is not true, we do not question the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050,” she stressed to journalists. Asked about European plans to introduce climate targets for 2040, Bartol said that the Polish presidency of the Council of the EU would work on this when the time came. “We depend on the Commission's proposal, which has not yet been received, and we do not know when it will come,” Bartol emphasised. The previous European Commission had recommended cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040, but left it to the new team (the Commission) to prepare a proposal for the specific piece of legislation, which will then have to be agreed with the European Parliament and the governments of the member states.
Renewable energy sources are of major importance in this context. During his confirmation hearing in the European Parliament, Dan Jørgensen already announced that the Commission would prepare legislative proposals on renewable energy for the period after 2030, and that a renewable energy target for 2040 would be set in particular.
Political instability continues in France. Progress is needed on the energy transition
France has entered a period of political and budgetary uncertainty. The vote of no confidence in Michel Barnier's government on 4 December made it impossible to adopt the 2025 budget before the end of the year. A little over a week later, President Emmanuel Macron appointed the centrist politician François Bayrou as the country's new prime minister in order to help resolve the political crisis. Meanwhile, to avert an acute financial crisis, consideration is being given to adopting a special law that would allow the state to operate for a few months without a budget.
This year France will finalise its climate change plan, in particular the draft of the third multiannual energy plan (PPE) published in the second half of last year, which sets out energy policy priorities up to 2035. It focuses on reducing energy consumption and accelerating low-carbon energy generation (developing renewables and reviving nuclear power). Following a public consultation, the plan is due to be published at the end of the first quarter of 2025.
More funding is to be allocated to local authorities, businesses and private individuals for measures to adapt to climate change. In October, the then prime minister Barnier announced that the relevant fund would be increased in 2025 from 75 to 300 million euros.
Snap elections in Germany will also decide the 2030 climate and energy targets
Following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government, serious attention has turned to the snap elections in Germany on 23 February 2025 and their impact on the country's future direction. Despite the noisy government crisis, the chancellor's three-party alliance achieved considerable success in key areas of climate and energy policy, such as expanding the use of renewable energy. Even so, the many funding questions and the policy disarray left behind by the collapse of the current coalition will not make life easy for the new government.
The snap elections and the coalition talks that follow them, running until the middle of 2025, could create an unnecessarily long period of uncertainty and practical stagnation in further policymaking. This will be a period of economic difficulty, security problems and rising costs. Such a situation could jeopardise the adoption and implementation of climate policy in Germany.
The conservatives, formerly led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, are likely to head the next coalition. Their candidate for chancellor is Friedrich Merz. He will face the current chancellor, Scholz, at the election. Whoever forms Germany's next government will have to tackle urgent questions, such as how to finance the new gas-fired power stations needed to allow coal-related industry to be shut down, how to support the decarbonisation of steel and cement production, and how to rescue the country's “famous” car industry. As is well known, German carmakers are struggling with the switch to e-mobility and are facing enormous competition from China and the United States.
Will Italy carry out its plans to revive nuclear power?
The year 2025 could show whether nuclear power in Italy will move from being a political question to being real policy and become part of the energy system. Nuclear power is a long-term issue. Italy's environment and energy minister, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, has repeatedly stressed that the government intends to make use of both renewables and nuclear power (it is worth recalling that Italy abandoned nuclear energy at the end of the 1980s). It seemed that the “road back” for nuclear power had been prepared, despite serious obstacles such as the two referendums in 1987 and 2011 in which the revival of nuclear power was rejected, and the country's difficulties in finding a site to store nuclear waste.
At the UN climate change conference COP29 in Baku, Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni set out her view of Italy's path to “net zero”, which did not include the use of nuclear power. She devoted much of her speech to nuclear fusion. This was most probably no accident, since views on the technology differ within the Italian government. While Meloni's coalition partners are supporters of nuclear power, her party Fratelli d'Italia has always been more sceptical. Recently the vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies, Fabio Rampelli, an authority within Fratelli d'Italia, said that “nuclear power will never return in any shape or form”.
The switch to electric mobility is adding to social and political tension. Italy's car industry has been in crisis for years, much as in Germany. The transition to electric vehicles is not going well. The sector is in very serious difficulty. The downturn is structural, and it is creating serious social tension. Job cuts and strikes are effectively continuous. The year 2025 could bring greater clarity about the industry's future direction. The Italian government wants the European Commission to review the phase-out of internal combustion engine cars, currently planned for 2035.
Will Poland manage to begin its energy transition in a presidential election year?
An important question surrounding Poland's energy transition in 2025 is whether the government will manage to get it started. Since the 2023 elections the country's rhetoric on climate has changed, but progress has been very slow and there have been some very serious setbacks (for example, the badly handled bill on wind farms, or the suspension of the “clean air” programme).
In 2025 the Polish government will have to show whether it can agree on a climate strategy (NCEP, PEP2040) and set out policy directions to support it, from clean energy through to decisions about the future of coal. These questions are urgent not only because of climate targets, but also because of the looming shortage of electricity that has to be reckoned with. Once coal-fired power stations have been closed, and without sufficient renewables or gas to replace coal, Poland could struggle to meet demand for energy.
The Polish presidential election due in May will be important. Since the president has the right to veto any bill, an ally of the government in that office would give the ruling coalition full power, whereas a win for the opposition would cause considerable alarm and could lead to deadlock. It is worth noting that the mayor of Warsaw and ruling party politician Rafał Trzaskowski, currently the front-runner in the presidential polls, has openly backed the case for climate action and the green transition.
Another very significant political event is that Poland will chair the Council of the EU during the first half of 2025. Security has been put forward as the main theme, and this also covers aspects of energy security.