Issue From crisis relief to structural energy-cost policy under the Clean Industrial Deal

Summary

Immediately after the invasion the EU and its members focused on crisis management through demand cuts, gas storage obligations, supplier diversification and support for vulnerable households and firms. Member states agreed from 2022 to voluntarily cut gas demand by at least 15 percent from past averages, and the 2022 Temporary Crisis Framework, widened in 2023 into the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework, eased state-aid rules to cover renewables, industrial decarbonisation and clean-tech investment as well as price relief. The Clean Industrial Deal of February 2025 then set out a joint roadmap for decarbonisation and competitiveness, focused on energy-intensive industry and clean-tech manufacturing. Its companion Action Plan for Affordable Energy seeks to lower costs structurally through wider use of power purchase agreements, better-designed contracts for difference, adjustments to network charges and taxes, grid expansion, joint gas purchasing, efficiency and market integration. The report presents this as a move from short-term price compensation toward a structural response combining market reform, grids, efficiency and industrial decarbonisation.