Dan Jørgensen, EU Commissioner for Energy and Housing: “Even if the Strait of Hormuz were to reopen this afternoon, it would take more than a couple of years to recover gas production”
Even if the Strait of Hormuz were to reopen fully later this afternoon, “it would take more than a couple of years to recover gas production,” said today the European Union (EU) Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jørgensen, at the fourteenth edition of the Annual Energy Conference organised by EsadeGeo and the Representation of the European Commission in Spain, held at Esade Madrid.
“We’re looking into a summer that is going to be difficult, even in the best-case scenario”, Jørgensen stated during his conversation with the Director of EsadeGeo, Ángel Saz. Their discussion focused on the energy uncertainty caused by the conflict involving the United States and Israel with Iran.
According to the European Commissioner, in the worst-case scenario—one that could last for months or even years—we would be facing “a totally new world order and probably very severe economic consequences that go far beyond only the energy sector”.
Jørgensen insisted that “there is no real security without energy security” and expressed his conviction that “we should never again import even a single molecule (of energy) from Russia, we should not repeat that mistake, we should never again trust a country that is fundamentally our enemy”.
The EU representative believes that the Union has learned lessons since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022 and is now far better prepared in energy terms: “First of all, we have diversified, so we have many other sources, but second, even more importantly, we are moving away from gas”.
Competitiveness and interconnection: challenges for an EU leading the fight against climate change
During his address at this forum, which brings together industry leaders and public-sector representatives, Jørgensen highlighted the EU’s leadership in the fight against climate change—a problem that will only worsen and exacerbate existing challenges.
The Commissioner also underlined the need to preserve the bloc’s competitiveness, which he said is currently under pressure. “We are paying too much for energy in Europe—two to three times more than our competitors in China and the United States,” he noted, although he also emphasized that even higher costs have been avoided thanks to the rapid expansion of renewable energy in the last ten years.
Jørgensen also stressed that the EU not only needs greater clean generation capacity, but also better use of existing infrastructure and increased investment in transmission and integration. “We are pretty well connected, but we need to be even better connected; we are not exploiting the potential we have.”
The conference also featured remarks by Nikos Isaris, Deputy Director of the Representation of the European Commission in Spain, and was closed by the President of EsadeGeo, Javier Solana.
