Good morning to all of you and a very warm welcome to you, Fatih Birol,
And congratulations to Commissioner Dan Jorgensen,
It was a short night for our negotiators. And today is a historic day for our Union. Last night, we reached a provisional agreement on the Commission's proposal to fully phase out Russian fossil fuels. We are turning that page. We are turning it for good. This is the dawn of a new era. The era of Europe's full energy independence from Russia.
Many believed this would be impossible. Well, the figures speak for themselves, let me give you some. Today, Russian gas imports – LNG and pipeline - are down from 45% to 13%, coal imports, from 51% to now zero, and on crude oil, from 26% to 2%. I always knew we could deliver. With unity, with resolve, and by building on the extraordinary work of the past three years. With our REPowerEU plan, we overcame the worst energy crisis in decades. We saved energy together while ensuring energy security all the way. We diversified our supplies to trusted partners signing new partnerships. And we invested in renewables and nuclear at unprecedented speed. Today, half of our electricity comes from renewables. And if you look at the low carbon energy, nuclear and renewable it is 74%. And this is just the beginning. REPowerEU kept us safe, winter after winter. It kept the lights on in Europe's schools and hospitals. It kept homes warm across the Union. This is a true European success story.
As we slashed Russian imports of fossil fuels massively, we also cut the revenues that Russia uses to wage its war of aggression against Ukraine. We were paying Russia EUR 12 billion per month at the beginning of the war for fossil fuels- now we are down to EUR 1,5 billion per month, still too much, and we aim to bring it down to zero.
My final point, as part of its aggression, Russia has been attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure winter after winter for the past three years. Winter after winter, Europe helped keep the lights on.
Dear Fatih, Dear Dan,
You both worked hard. You remember our joint effort last year to repair, reconnect, and stabilise Ukraine's energy system. We will do it again this year. We will help repair the damage caused by the Russian strikes. We have already provided more than 16,000 power generators and transformers. And we are stabilising Ukraine's energy grid, with over 2 gigawatts of electricity exports from our Union to Ukraine. We will continue to support immediate needs. And help build a more resilient Ukrainian energy system for the long term.
To conclude. This is a great day for Europe, and for our independence from Russian fossil fuels. Because this is how we make Europe resilient. I want to thank the Commissioner, the Council and the Parliament. This is European team work at its best. And this includes your precious advice, dear Fatih, over all these years, thank you very much for that.
