00:00With me is Dan Jørgensen, the EU Commissioner for Energy and Housing.
00:04Commissioner Jørgensen, you also happen to be Danish.
00:08What message do you take away from this gathering,
00:11which is mainly on energy, of those EU leaders, European leaders,
00:15who are around the North Sea?
00:19Well, it's very clear that in these turbulent times,
00:22with a war on our continent,
00:24with Putin having blackmailed European countries for many years,
00:29with energy, which also strained relations across the Atlantic to the US,
00:36it's more important than ever that we stick together and work together in Europe.
00:41And there's no security without energy security.
00:44We know this all too well, and therefore, working very closely together,
00:49expanding our own production of renewable energy,
00:53instead of buying fossils, whether it's from our enemy, Putin,
00:57or it's from other actors in the world, is extremely important.
01:01Commissioner Jørgensen, the Europeans around the North Sea, including Britain,
01:07have just decided to do a lot more of what Donald Trump really resents.
01:12He doesn't like wind turbines anywhere.
01:15How can it be that the Europeans have such a different take on getting energy independence,
01:20whereas in the US, it's all about drill, baby, drill?
01:24Well, first and foremost, we don't have the fossil fuels that would be needed
01:30if that was to cover all of our consumption.
01:32We import for more than 400 billion every year.
01:35But even if we had it, it would still be better for us to use renewables.
01:40Why is that?
01:41Well, first of all, we need to decarbonize our economies.
01:43We need to keep fighting climate change.
01:45Climate change is getting worse year by year,
01:48and we need to take leadership in changing that, in taking that struggle.
01:53Second, renewable energy is cheap.
01:57We can, by investing in renewable energy, bring down our bills,
02:01both for our industry and for our household.
02:03So this is both about security and independence.
02:06It's about prices, and it's about fighting climate change.
02:09Now, this took place, this meeting of European leaders,
02:14just after that spat over Greenland.
02:16This is still an issue.
02:18It hasn't completely gone away.
02:21There was a lot of stressing that this whole energy independence
02:24is about becoming more independent from Russia.
02:27How much is this about becoming more independent from the United States,
02:31who are the largest supplier of LNG outside Europe to the Europeans?
02:35So, first step is to say we do not want to continue to import energy from Russia.
02:42And we have decided in the European Union now that that will stop.
02:46No longer will we let ourselves be blackmailed
02:48or having energy weaponized against us
02:51or indirectly help finance Putin's war.
02:54So that's number one.
02:55Number two is, of course,
02:57even though there's a big difference between the U.S. and Russia,
03:02the U.S. is not our enemy,
03:04and we don't want to have any sort of trade struggles
03:08or tariff struggles with the U.S. if we can avoid it,
03:14even though that is the case,
03:16it's never good for Europe to be dependent on anybody.
03:20And the discussion in the last couple of weeks
03:23and the very serious discussions that has been across the Atlantic,
03:32the unacceptable things that the President of the United States
03:36has said about Greenland
03:37only underlines how important it is for us to be independent
03:42and to create our own alternatives.
03:45So have our own homegrown energy instead of importing it.
03:50Well, imports from the United States in terms of energy
03:52are up more than 50% of the last 12 months alone.
03:57How much of this can be reversed
04:00without risking that relationship with the United States,
04:04which everybody continues to stress is an ally?
04:07Yeah, well, so the reason why the U.S. is now number two
04:11on the list of countries that we import energy from,
04:14oil and gas from, number one is, of course, Norway.
04:18The reason for that is because we have stopped,
04:20or are in the process of stopping importing from Russia.
04:24And obviously there's no comparison.
04:26Russia is our enemy,
04:28and they are conducting a terrible war in Ukraine as we speak.
04:32We have a completely different relationship to the U.S.,
04:36even though that is also a relationship
04:39that has its issues right now.
04:41In the future, of course,
04:42we want to be completely independent.
04:45We have an ambition in Europe to reach net zero,
04:50meaning that we need to move away completely from fossils.
04:54This is good for our security,
04:57but it will also be good for our competitiveness.
04:58It goes without saying almost that importing
05:00for more than 400 billion euros every year
05:02is not sustainable from an economic perspective either.
05:06So we're moving as fast as we can.
05:09Last year, we deployed a record of 89 gigawatts of new renewables.
05:14We hope to break that record this year and even more next year.
05:17So it is going fast in the right direction.
05:19Of course, 300 gigawatts being the target by 2050.
05:23That's a very clear, high ambition.
05:26At the same time, when you look at Donald Trump
05:31just having pulled back from the brink
05:33of a real confrontation over Greenland,
05:36how much trust has been broken there amongst the Europeans?
05:42I think the relationship with America
05:47is at a point right now where we've never been before
05:53and it's opened a lot of people's eyes to the fact that
05:56it's not a good situation to be dependent on anybody.
06:00We saw it when Russia started its aggression against Ukraine.
06:06That was a wake-up call for many.
06:08But now we see also that other types of problems can arise
06:11with countries that we usually consider our allies.
06:14So it is a wake-up call and it means that we need to work even faster.
06:17Now, damage has been done.
06:20There was a clear reaction from the European Parliament
06:23which didn't vote into being the trade agreement
06:27struck between the European Union and the United States last year.
06:32Now, do you expect that to still go ahead?
06:35Or what will happen with that now?
06:37So this is too early to say, obviously.
06:39What we are doing right now is making sure
06:43that what I'm responsible for,
06:45which is to facilitate a faster deployment
06:50of our own homegrown energy,
06:52that that proceeds as fast as possible.
06:54What I have done just before Christmas
06:56is to present a grid action plan.
06:59This means that we will speed up
07:02and expand the process of having our physical infrastructure in place.
07:06This is a potential bottleneck
07:08that we definitely need to deal with.
07:11Second, we will put forward very soon
07:13a clean investment strategy.
07:15for Europe because it's
07:18very, very big amounts of money
07:21that we need to find in order for us
07:23to make this transition that is needed.
07:26I have to ask about Greenland.
07:28Now we have the expectation
07:29by the Trump administration
07:31that they will potentially build
07:34new bases on Greenland.
07:35Is there some kind of red line
07:38on the European side
07:39how far one would allow the Americans
07:41to go under that 1951 agreement?
07:44So the agreement between the US
07:48and the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland
07:50is obviously something that needs to be done
07:55between these parties.
07:57Now, apart from that,
07:59obviously we from the European Union
08:01are doing whatever we can
08:03to help Greenland also
08:04in this difficult situation,
08:07showing solidarity,
08:08but also investing,
08:09helping build infrastructure and so forth.
08:11Then, of course,
08:11there's the NATO track,
08:12also extremely important
08:13to have more security in that region.
08:16But I think the most important point
08:18to underline,
08:19that's also been reiterated many times today,
08:22is that the future of Greenland
08:23is for the Greenlandic people,
08:26the Greenlandic government,
08:27and, of course,
08:28the Kingdom of Denmark to decide.
08:30Just one more question.
08:31You were talking about
08:32how green energy becomes cheaper,
08:34but there are some serious problems
08:37attracting investment,
08:38particularly when it comes
08:39to offshore wind turbines.
08:42There was a large procurement by Germany
08:44that they couldn't even find someone
08:46to bid for it
08:47because it wasn't seen as profitable.
08:49So will this be a game-changer now here?
08:52I think many of the decisions made today
08:53will be game-changers.
08:55It's a very clear signal to the market
08:57that if you want to invest in offshore wind,
09:02then Europe is the place to do it.
09:04And there are a lot of institutional investors out there,
09:07also now pulling back from the US,
09:09let's be honest about that,
09:10that now have an opportunity
09:11and a possibility to invest
09:13invest in a region of the world,
09:16Europe, the North Sea,
09:17where we have stable political framework conditions
09:20and where we know for a fact
09:23that this is a part of a long-term strategy
09:25for transition of our energy system.
09:27Just finally,
09:28when you travel home to Copenhagen
09:29and you get asked what times we live in,
09:32what do you tell your friends?
09:34Well, the Chinese have a saying,
09:38may you have interesting times.
09:40And by interesting,
09:42they don't necessarily mean positive.
09:45We try and be as calm and collected as we can,
09:52but we are not naive.
09:54We know that this is extremely serious.
09:58And we know that we have a war in Ukraine
10:02that we need to help Ukraine win.
10:05If not,
10:06it will be a catastrophe for Ukraine,
10:08but it will also be a potential threat to us in Europe.
10:12And we know that the relationship to the US
10:15is different than it's been before
10:19and it's under stress.
10:20And we very much regret that.
10:21And we are just very fortunate
10:25that we have very strong allies and friends in Europe
10:28that stand shoulder by shoulder with us.
10:31How will the relationship feel different
10:33for the United States side
10:35following that Greenland event, let's call it?
10:40So there's no doubt that, of course,
10:42it was a very serious claim
10:47that the president of the United States made.
10:49And it did have big consequences.
10:52Of course, the situation is better now
10:54than it was just a week ago.
10:56But we still consider it, of course, very serious.
11:00Now we await the meetings that will take place
11:03and the negotiations that will take place
11:04between Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark and the US.
11:08And, of course, the European Union
11:10stand side by side with the Kingdom of Denmark
11:14and we will help in any way we can.
11:17Commissioner Jorgensen, thank you so much.
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