EditEuropean Court of Auditors warns: REPowerEU is stalling
Without a serious revival, the auditors warn, the EU’s plan to end energy dependence on Russia will not achieve its ambitions
The EU’s plan to end energy dependence on Russia is struggling to deliver results, just as new risks to Europe’s energy security emerge from turmoil in the Middle East. That is the conclusion of a report published today by the European Court of Auditors (ECA). Member states have committed less than one-fifth of the extra €300 billion in investment the Commission said would be needed to meet the plan’s goals. Without a serious revival, the auditors warn, REPowerEU will not achieve its ambitions.
“Four years after its launch, REPowerEU is stalling, even though several hundred billion euros have been made available,” said Mihails Kozlovs, the ECA member responsible for the report. New geopolitical tensions and their effect on energy markets, he added, make it more urgent to diversify supplies and avoid becoming overly dependent on a single provider again. That, he said, requires a coordinated effort to restart the plan.
A plan that remains largely on paper
According to the auditors, member states have barely absorbed REPowerEU. National energy and climate plans, which were supposed to guide implementation on the ground, in most cases contain no specific actions or targets in support of it. Countries have committed only €54.3 billion of the €300 billion made available for REPowerEU through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
For the Court, a gap that large points either to an inflated estimate of investment needs, or to a failure to turn objectives into concrete measures. The report also finds that the plan is missing some of its main targets, and that its governance framework lacks effective tools to steer implementation and track results reliably.
The drop in Russian imports is not all down to the plan
EU sanctions on Russian fossil fuels have sharply cut oil imports from Russia, though it remains unclear how much Russian oil still reaches the Union via third countries or the so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers. Gas imports have fallen as well, even if some EU countries imported more Russian gas in 2024 than they did before the war in Ukraine.
The auditors stress that milder winters and weaker demand caused by high prices also help explain the decline. The plan’s direct impact may therefore be more modest than it first appears.
Missed targets on renewables and interconnectors
REPowerEU has helped speed up some important national projects, but it has done little to accelerate the clean-energy transition by adding renewable generation. Measured against the targets in the REPowerEU chapters of national recovery plans, the extra renewable capacity delivered so far is negligible – far short of the 103 GW goal.
The same is true of cross-border electricity interconnectors. The Court found only three REPowerEU measures in two member states aimed at that objective, and one of those was later dropped. For the auditors, that is further evidence that the plan has not produced the scale of change originally promised.
Where the plan came from
The European Commission presented REPowerEU in May 2022, at the request of the European Council. Its main aim is to phase out Russian fossil-fuel imports by diversifying energy sources, speeding up the shift to clean energy, saving energy, strengthening European interconnectors and energy infrastructure, and improving system preparedness.
The Commission put the extra investment needed by 2030 at about €300 billion and made that sum available through the RRF, the post-pandemic recovery fund. In the communication launching the plan, it called the RRF “particularly well suited to implementing urgent priorities within a common EU framework.”
The article in Italian by EUalive’s partner FocusEurope.it can be found here.
Caption: On 17 June 2025, Dan Jørgensen, European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, gave a press conference on the REPowerEU proposal to phase out Russian gas imports and improve monitoring of potential energy dependencies. [Europe by Satellite]
Updated: September 11, 2026 - 08:55
