First of all, I want to thank Prime Minister Sánchez, dear Pedro, for hosting us in this amazing place. What an experience. Yesterday, you hosted the EPC, and today, the informal European Council. Many thanks for the very warm welcome.
Today's informal Summit was about preparing for the future. We met, as you know, 18 months ago in Versailles, right after the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And today, we took stock of what we committed to, back then: a more secure, competitive Europe – with stronger defence capabilities, energy independence, and a robust economy. This was the basis for the Versailles Declaration 18 months ago. And we delivered.
We agreed in record time to procure and deliver massive financial and military support to Ukraine. Team Europe has already provided EUR 82 billion worth of support for Ukraine. We have drastically reduced Russia's grip on our energy supply. We got rid of the dependency on Russian fossil fuels. Just a few figures that show this: We have completely gotten rid of Russian coal. We have reduced the part of Russian oil in the oil supply from 27% down to 6%. Pipeline gas imports from Russia amounted to 50% of our total energy imports in 2021. Now it is less than 10%. This shows that it was a tough ride. It brought us an energy crisis. But we mastered it; we managed it. Today, energy prices are down to pre-war levels. And most importantly, we leap forward with a massive investment in renewable energy. So that we can proudly say that last year, for the very first time, we were able to produce more electricity from sun and wind, renewables, than from gas and coal.
We also took a deep and good look at our economic dependencies. You know the topics: critical raw materials, or for example semiconductors. Here too, we delivered. We took action to reduce those risks. Think, for example, of the Chips Act that triggered already massive investment in the production of semiconductors in the European Union; or think about the Critical Raw Materials Act; or the Net-Zero Industry Act, our proposal to ensure that the future of clean tech is in Europe. We have come quite a long way in only 18 months, but we must keep our eye on the ball.
And here, Pedro, many thanks for the very useful and excellent analysis that fed into our discussion. This analysis points to the same overall direction on what needs to be done: It goes from protecting and promoting the increasingly fragile rules-based international order; to boosting research, investment, and training in Europe in key sectors; and strengthening social cohesion in the context of a profound and rapid change.
To these core elements I was just describing, we need to add two more: The first is the crucial issue of managing migration. And the second is the enlargement process to a European Union of 30+ members. The accession process to the European Union is merit-based. This was very clear also today in our discussion: no shortcuts, no automated accession to the European Union. Merit-based. But it is not only for the candidate countries to work on this merit-based process. We also have to do our own homework, so that we are also ready – in case candidate countries are ready to join – to welcome them to the European Union. By the beginning of November, we will have the Commission's annual report on the accession and where the state of play for the different candidate countries is. This will allow us then to take stock and have an informed debate during the December European Council.
Regarding our tasks, we also discussed that, first of all, we need an agreement on the reform of the electricity market. This is very important. Let us keep in mind that this is about Europe's leadership role in fighting climate change. And it is about overall EU competitiveness compared to our main competitors. And I am not speaking about competition within the European Union, but competitors from outside. Second, we need an agreement on the reform of the economic governance framework. This is essential to allow public investment to play a strong and sustainable role in financing the green and digital transitions.
My last point is on migration. First of all, it is good news that two days ago, we found an agreement in Council – congratulation to the Spanish Presidency – on the crisis management proposal. This is very important because this is a crucial piece of the puzzle for the overall Migration and Asylum Pact so that we now hope that we will soon get it over the finishing line. But today, we have mainly discussed the operational part of managing migration. Here, you know, there is the ten-point plan short-term crisis reaction to the events in Lampedusa, but also the more structural mid- and long-term approach like the MoU with Tunisia.
Let me briefly mention five elements that have been discussed. The first is indeed an overall understanding that we need a comprehensive approach to partner countries that are either countries of origin or transit countries. Here is very important that we invest in those countries. Global Gateway can play a crucial role with that investment. As you might recall, EUR 150 billion of Global Gateway are earmarked for African countries, for investment in infrastructure.
The second point is: There was an overall understanding also on how important legal pathways and humanitarian corridors are. The better we are on the legal pathways and the humanitarian corridors, the stricter we can be on irregular migration. Just to give you two figures. We had last year 3.7 million regular migrants to the European Union. They are important. We need them. We need even more of them. But we also registered 330,000 irregular migrants. This is the point where we cannot accept that smugglers and traffickers decide who is coming to the European Union. We are the ones who decide who is coming to the European Union, who gets asylum here, but also who has access to the labour market. Therefore, these legal pathways are clearly very important.
The third point is: cracking down on smugglers. This is organised crime. And we have to fight the smuggling like as we do for organised crime with Europol and Eurojust and Frontex and all the knowledge of our Member States.
The fourth point is: Support to the countries which have to work hard to deal with migration. And here too, we have to work very closely together with IOM and UNHCR to help those countries bring migrants back to their countries of origin, so as to also give relief to the countries of transit.
And the fifth point is indeed: Return. We have seen in Lampedusa that the countries of origin are, for example, Ivory Coast, Senegal, or Guinea. Vice-President Schinas went immediately to those countries to agree that to have a swift return of irregular migrants. As I said, in return, we want to establish talent partnerships and legal pathways. It is very important to return irregular migrants to break the narrative of the smugglers and to send out the strong message that it is the legal pathways that will bring you to Europe, and choose them.
This whole approach is based on Team Europe. It is also very clear that none of us is able to do it on our own. So it was a fruitful discussion among the Team Europe.
