LONDON — Rachel Reeves needs at least one good news story to sell. The under-fire U.K. finance minister is gearing up for a tricky budget next week — and slashing Brits’ energy bills could give her something to shout about. Officials in the Treasury and at No. 10 Downing Street are exploring ways to cut domestic energy costs by shifting some levies currently added to household bills into general taxation, said three government figures granted anonymity to discuss pre-budget planning.  Ministers are targeting a cut of between £150 and £170 on an annual household bill, according to one of the three figures. That would get Chancellor Reeves and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband halfway toward a totemic election promise of slashing bills by £300 by 2030 — and give the government something positive to pitch on budget day.  Officials are looking at “big numbers,” said another of the figures. “It could be a significant moment.”  A cut to VAT on energy bills is also under consideration, they said, echoing previous reports.  Number crunching by green policy wonks shows how Reeves, via those changes to levies and a potential VAT cut, could get the Treasury to its magic number.  PRIORITY: BILLS  Energy bills are the single biggest factor cited by voters as a cost-of-living concern, according to polls. Left-leaning think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research, which is highly influential in government circles, has called on Labour ministers to launch a “war on bills” campaign, modeled on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s approach in Australia.  The hope in the Treasury is that, by conjuring up a sum large enough to win some prominent headlines, Reeves might land a good news story on energy bills on a day otherwise set to be dominated by a “smorgasbord” of unpopular tax rises.  Energy prices were “still very high for people,” Reeves acknowledged earlier this month. She pledged to make action on the cost of living “one of the three priorities for the budget,” alongside reducing national debt and protecting the National Health Service.  Last week, nine Labour MPs, including the chair of parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee, Toby Perkins, wrote to Reeves urging her to move all social and environmental levies from bills into taxation.  Advocates regard this as a fairer way to ensure the costs fall on those with the broadest shoulders.  “The public wants to see action to reduce energy bills, which now ranks as the most worrying household expense amongst the population,” the letter, coordinated by charity the MCS Foundation, said.  OPTIONS  A dizzying array of levies are charged on bills to pay for renewable energy projects, energy-efficiency schemes and the costs of maintaining a stable electricity system. Collectively, they make up around 18 percent of the average electricity bill.  It isn’t yet clear which might be moved into taxation, but the first government figure above said the so-called Renewables Obligation — a charge that provides an income for older clean energy projects, some built 20 years ago — is the leading candidate to be shifted onto taxation.  The think tank Nesta, which has calculated the value of the reform, says it could potentially cut electricity bills by £86. The New Economics Foundation think tank puts the figure at around £95.  The government is also looking at the Energy Company Obligation, according to reports, which is currently levied on electricity and gas bills. That could instead be paid for using spending already allocated to the £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan.  The Warm Homes Plan is expected to pay for energy-efficiency measures, solar panels and electric heating for poorer households — but full details have not yet been finalized.  Cornwall Insight, a consultancy which forecasts future trends in the energy market, said Tuesday that cutting VAT on energy bills from 5 percent to zero at the budget could bring down annual bills by a further £80.  NET ZERO CONSENT  Ministers hope taking direct action on bills will shore up public confidence in the government’s wider energy and climate agenda, which includes a stretching target to almost fully decarbonize electricity by 2030 and hit net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  The goal in the long run is to reduce U.K. dependence on gas, the volatile price of which has done major damage to household finances in recent years.  But the problem for the government is that actions required to achieve that strategy are — in the short term at least — pushing up bills. The costs of investing in new clean power sources like offshore wind farms, along with the electricity lines and pylons required to clean up the energy system, are all adding to costs.  The independent National Energy System Operator expects charges on energy bills to pay for upgrading the power grid to hit £93.48 next year, a jump of £40. Further increases are anticipated as vast pylon-building projects gather steam.  “This is a really delicate time for prices and their link to the legitimacy of the energy transition,” said Adam Berman, director of policy and advocacy at Energy UK, speaking in September. If ministers don’t look at ways to lower bills now, he argued, “they will be lining themselves up for a very challenging start to next year.”  Opposition parties have seized on this weakness in the government’s energy strategy. The Conservatives are calling for a Cheap Power Plan (rather than a clean one). Nigel Farage’s Reform UK said it would tear up expensive government contracts with offshore wind projects and abandon net zero altogether.  “Bills are the number one public concern,” said Sam Alvis, director of energy at the IPPR. “Regardless of whether it’s to underpin support for the clean power mission, any government needs to show it’s heard that message from the public that they want action on cost. Without that sense of public buy-in now, there’s no hope for any longer term economic or energy reforms.”  A Treasury spokesperson confirmed action on the cost of living was a priority for Reeves but said: “We do not comment on budget speculation.” 

BELÉM, Brazil — United Nations climate summits have for years ended with bold promises to stave off global warming. But those commitments often fade when nations go home. Three years ago, in a resort city on the Red Sea, delegates from nearly 200 countries approved what they hailed as a historic fund to help poorer nations pay for climate damages — but it’s at risk of running dry. A year later, negotiations a few miles from Dubai’s gleaming waterfront achieved the first-ever worldwide pledge to turn away from fossil fuels — but production of oil and natural gas is still rising, a trend championed by the new administration in Washington. That legacy is casting a shadow over this year’s conference near the mouth of the Amazon River, which the host, Brazil, has dubbed a summit of truth. Days after the gathering started last week, nations were still sorting out what to do with contentious issues that have typically held up the annual negotiations. As the talks opened, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the world must “fight” efforts to deny the reality of climate change — decades after scientists concluded that people are making the Earth hotter. That led one official to offer a grim assessment of global efforts to tackle climate change, 10 years after an earlier summit produced the sweeping Paris Agreement. “We have miserably failed to accomplish the objective of this convention, which is the stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy and lead negotiator, during an interview at the conference site in Belém, Brazil. “Additional promises mean nothing if you didn’t achieve or fulfill your previous promises,” he added. It hasn’t helped that the U.S. is skipping the summit for the first time, or that President Donald Trump dismisses climate change as a hoax and urged the world to abandon efforts to fix it. But Trump isn’t the only reason for stalled action. Economic uncertainty, infighting and political backsliding have stymied green measures in both North America and Europe. In other parts of the world, countries are embracing the economic opportunities that the green transition offers. Many officials in Belém point to signs that progress is underway, including the rapid growth of renewables and electric vehicles and a broader understanding of both the world’s challenges and the means to address them. “Now we talk about solar panels, electric cars, regenerative agriculture, stopping deforestation, as if we have always talked about those things,” said Ana Toni, the summit’s executive director. “Just in one decade, the topic changed totally. But we still need to speed up the process.” Still, analysts say it’s become inevitable that the world’s warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius since the dawn of the industrial era, breaching the target at the heart of the Paris Agreement. With that in mind, countries are huddling at this month’s summit, known as COP30, with the hope of finding greater alignment on how to slow rising temperatures. But how credible would any promises reached in Brazil be? Here are five pledges achieved at past climate summits — and where they stand now: MOVING AWAY FROM FOSSIL FUELS The historic 2023 agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels, made at the COP28 talks in Dubai, was the first time that nearly 200 countries agreed to wind down their use of oil, natural gas and coal. Though nonbinding, that commitment was even more striking because the talks were overseen by the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company. Just two years later, fossil fuel consumption is on the rise, despite rapid growth of wind and solar, and many of the world’s largest oil and gas producers plan to drill even more. The United States — the world’s biggest economy, top oil and gas producer and second-largest climate polluter — is pursuing a fossil fuel renaissance while forsaking plans to shift toward renewables. The president of the Dubai summit, Sultan al-Jaber, said at a recent energy conference that while wind and solar would expand, so too would oil and gas, in part to meet soaring demand for data centers. Liquefied natural gas would grow 65 percent by 2050, and oil will continue to be used as a feedstock for plastic, he said. “The exponential growth of AI is also creating a power surge that no one anticipated 18 months ago,” he said in a press release from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., where he remains managing director and group CEO. The developed world is continuing to move in the wrong direction on fossil fuels, climate activists say. “We know that the world’s richest countries are continuing to invest in oil and gas development,” said Bill Hare, a climate scientist who founded Climate Analytics, a policy group. “This simply should not be happening.” The Paris-based International Energy Agency said last week that oil and gas demand could grow for decades to come. That statement marked a reversal from the group’s previous forecast that oil use would peak in 2030 as clean energy takes hold. Trump’s policies are one reason for the pivot. Still, renewables such as wind and solar power are soaring in many countries, leading analysts to believe that nations will continue to shift away from fossil fuels. How quickly that will happen is unknown. “The transition is underway but not yet at the pace or scale required,” said a U.N. report on global climate action released last week. It pointed to large gaps in efforts to reduce fossil fuel subsidies and abate methane pollution. Lula opened this year’s climate conference by calling for a “road map” to cut fossil fuels globally. It has earned support from countries such as Colombia, Germany, Kenya and the United Kingdom. But it’s not part of the official agenda at these talks, and many poorer countries say what they really need is funding and support to make the shift. TRIPLE RENEWABLE ENERGY, DOUBLE ENERGY EFFICIENCY This call also emerged from the 2023 summit, and was considered a tangible measure of countries’ progress toward achieving the Paris Agreement’s temperature targets. Countries are on track to meet the pledge to triple their renewable energy capacity by 2030, thanks largely to a record surge in solar power, according to energy think tank Ember. It estimates that the world is set to add around 793 gigawatts of new renewable capacity in 2025, up from 717 gigawatts in 2024, driven mainly by China. “If this pace continues, annual additions now only need to grow by around 12 percent a year from 2026 to 2030 to reach tripling, compared with 21 percent originally needed,” said Dave Jones, Ember’s chief analyst. “But governments will need to strengthen commitments to lock this in.” The pledge to double the world’s energy efficiency by 2030, by contrast, is a long way behind. While efficiency improvements would need to grow by 4 percent a year to reach that target, they hit only 1 percent in 2024. ‘LOSS AND DAMAGE’ FUND When the landmark fund for victims of climate disasters was established at the 2022 talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, it offered promise that billions of dollars would someday flow to nations slammed by hurricanes, droughts or rising seas. Three years later, it has less than $800 million — only a little more than it had in 2023. Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, excoriated leaders this month for not providing more. Her rebuke came little more than a week after Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever seen in the Atlantic, swept across the Caribbean. “All of us should hold our heads down in shame, because having established this fund a few years ago in Sharm El-Sheikh, its capital base is still under $800 million while Jamaica reels from damage in excess of $7 billion, not to mention Cuba or the Bahamas,” she said. Last week, the fund announced it was allocating $250 million for financial requests to help less-wealthy nations grapple with “damage from slow onset and extreme climate-induced events.” The fund’s executive director, Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, said the call for contributions was significant but also a reminder that the fund needs much more money. Richard Muyungi, chair for the African Group of Negotiators and Tanzania’s climate envoy, said he expects additional funds will come from this summit, though not the billions needed. “There is a chance that the fund will run out of money by next year, year after next, before it even is given a chance to replenish itself,” said Michai Robertson, a senior finance adviser for the Alliance of Small Island States. GLOBAL METHANE PLEDGE Backed by the U.S. and European Union, this pledge to cut global methane emissions 30 percent by 2030 was launched four years ago at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, sparking a wave of talk about the benefits of cutting methane, a greenhouse gas with a relatively short shelf life but much greater warming potential than carbon dioxide. “The Global Methane Pledge has been instrumental in catalyzing attention to the issue of methane, because it has moved from a niche issue to one of the critical elements of the climate planning discussions,” said Giulia Ferrini, head of the U.N. Environment Program’s International Methane Emissions Observatory. “All the tools are there,” she added. “It’s just a question of political will.” Methane emissions from the oil and gas sector remain stubbornly high, despite the economic benefits of bringing them down, according to the IEA. The group’s latest methane tracker shows that energy-based methane pollution was around 120 million tons in 2024, roughly the same as a year earlier. Despite more than 150 nations joining the Global Methane Pledge, few countries or companies have devised plans to meet their commitments, “and even fewer have demonstrated verifiable emissions reductions,” the IEA said. The European Union’s methane regulation requires all oil and gas operators to measure, report and verify their emissions, including importers. And countries and companies are becoming more diligent about complying with an international satellite program that notifies companies and countries of methane leaks so they can repair them. Responses went from just 1 percent of alerts last year to 12 percent so far in 2025. More work is needed to achieve the 2030 goal, the U.N. says. Meanwhile, U.S. officials have pressured the EU to rethink its methane curbs. Barbados and several other countries are calling for a binding methane pact similar to the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 agreement that’s widely credited with saving the ozone layer by phasing out the use of harmful pollutants. That’s something Paris Agreement architect Laurence Tubiana hopes could happen. “I’m just in favor of tackling this very seriously, because the pledge doesn’t work [well] enough,” she said. CLIMATE FINANCE In 2009, wealthy countries agreed to provide $100 billion annually until 2025 to help poorer nations deal with rising temperatures. At last year’s climate talks in Azerbaijan, they upped the ante to $300 billion per year by 2035. But those countries delivered the $100 billion two years late, and many nations viewed the new $300 billion commitment with disappointment. India, which expressed particular ire about last year’s outcome, is pushing for new discussions in Brazil to get that money flowing. “Finance really is at the core of everything that we do,” Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s climate envoy, told POLITICO’s E&E News. But he also recognizes that governments alone are not the answer. “We cannot say finance must only come from the public sector.” Last year’s pledge included a call for companies and multilateral development banks to contribute a sum exceeding $1 trillion by 2035, but much of that would be juiced by donor nations — and more countries would need to contribute. That is more important now, said Jake Werksman, the EU’s lead negotiator. “As you know, one of the larger contributors to this process, the U.S., has essentially shut down all development flows from the U.S. budget, and no other party, including the EU, can make up for that gap,” he said during a press conference. Zack Colman and Zia Weise contributed to this report from Belém, Brazil.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy stands as a devastating reminder of what can happen when fire safety is not prioritized in construction, whether renovation or new build. The Netflix documentary, Grenfell: Uncovered, alongside the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report, highlights how decisions made throughout the renovation process — including the use of combustible façade insulation and cladding — resulted in catastrophic human consequences, with 72 people dying in the tower blaze.   At its core, the Grenfell tragedy is the result of systemic neglect — neglect that encompassed regulation, industry practice, and enforcement at local and national levels. De-regulation, poor oversight, misleading industry practice, ignored safety warnings and cost-cutting all played a role. Sadly, Grenfell is not an isolated incident. Similar tragedies have occurred across Europe, most recently in Valencia.   The EU’s EPBD presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape Europe’s built environment. It is extremely positive that the renovation wave will improve millions of buildings by 2050, targeting the worst-performing ones first and ultimately leading to a fully decarbonized building stock by 2050. And while transformational goals such as these are welcome, it’s imperative that EPBD implementation puts fire safety on equal footing alongside energy efficiency.   There is an urgent need for policymakers and industry leaders to take decisive action.  Fire safety should be non-negotiable  With the EU about to transform its built environment to provide a sustainable future, we have to get it right.   A well-insulated, energy-efficient building can reduce heating needs by up to 70 percent. It can also improve occupant comfort, reduce noise and improve a building’s aesthetic if a new façade is installed. As the Netflix documentary demonstrates, these benefits mean little if achieved at the expense of safety.   The good news lies in what we already know — and it’s not complicated. Non-combustible insulation and cladding reduce the fire risk, while combustible counterparts don’t. Why? Because non-combustible materials like stone wool insulation don’t burn. And because it can withstand temperatures up to 1,000 C, stone wool insulation can help stop a fire from spreading. Another important factor is that non-combustible stone wool does not produce significant amounts of toxic smoke or gases when exposed to fire.  > The good news lies in what we already know — and it’s not complicated. > Non-combustible insulation and cladding reduce the fire risk, while > combustible counterparts don’t.   One shouldn’t underestimate the risk of toxic smoke and gases in a fire. Grenfell Tower was wrapped in combustible plastic foam insulation and plastic-filled cladding panels. According to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report, all 72 people who died in the fire were overcome by toxic gases. The same toxic smoke and gases are responsible for many of the firefighters who attended at Grenfell developing serious long-term health disorders.    Fire safety matters greatly as EU member states embark on a massive energy efficiency building renovation wave. Policies governing the use of combustible façade materials vary widely among member states. There is no central register to tell us where combustible facades remain in place, leaving a knowledge gap about the extent of combustible facades use in the current building stock. But we do know, from market data, that significant volumes of combustible products continue to make up a large portion of the EU market despite available alternatives, and that puts lives at risk.  via DEUTSCHE ROCKWOOL Learning the lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire  The public inquiry that followed the Grenfell Tower fire said in its final report that the “safety of people in the built environment depends principally on a combination of three primary elements, good design, the choice of suitable materials and sound methods of construction…”.   It also said that a “fresh approach needs to be taken to reviewing and revising the Building Regulations and statutory guidance that is driven primarily by considerations of safety.” It is critical for EU member states to learn from the report’s findings as they implement the EPBD.    > “Safety of people in the built environment depends principally on a > combination of three primary elements, good design, the choice of suitable > materials and sound methods of construction”  — Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 > report . ROCKWOOL has long argued for strict regulations mandating the use of non-combustible façade materials in high-rise and high-risk buildings. As legislation among member states continues to vary greatly, the EU should be advising member states to adopt stronger fire safety standards that ban the use of combustible materials on high-rise and high-risk buildings like schools, hospitals and care facilities that have vulnerable occupants and take longer to evacuate.   What it means to get it right  We have an opportunity to create a new generation of energy efficient, acoustically comfortable, aesthetically pleasing and fire-safe buildings — our homes, workplaces, schools, care facilities, and so much more. It’s essential that renovation should mean energy efficiency and fire safety together, not one or the other.   Across the EU, we must learn the tragic lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. The formula is straightforward. For high-rise and high-risk buildings, member states should simply require the use of non-combustible façade insulation and cladding.   When so many good alternatives are readily available, why take the risk to do otherwise? 

When you live at the crossroads of East and West, energy is never just about electricity or gas. In the Republic of Moldova, high-voltage lines and pipelines have always carried more than power — they have carried geopolitics. For decades, this small country wedged between Romania and Ukraine found itself trapped in a web of vulnerabilities: dependent on Russian gas, tied to Soviet-era infrastructure and reliant on energy supplies from the breakaway Transnistrian region. Energy was less a utility than a lever of political blackmail.         And yet, in just a few years, Moldova has begun to flip the script. What was once the country’s greatest weakness has been turned into a project of sovereignty — and, crucially, a bridge to Europe.         A turning point in the crisis         The breaking point came in October 2021, when Gazprom slashed deliveries, prices exploded and Chișinău suddenly found itself staring at an energy abyss. Electricity was supplied almost entirely from the MGRES plant in Transnistria, itself hostage to Kremlin influence. By 2022 the situation worsened: gas supplies were halted altogether, MGRES cut the lights on the right bank of the Dniester and Moldova teetered on the edge of a blackout.         With coordinated support from the European Union — which helped Moldova overcome the crises, cushion the impact on consumers hit by soaring prices and committed further backing through instruments such as the Growth Plan for the Republic of Moldova — the country managed to stabilize the situation.              For many countries, such a crisis would have spelled capitulation. For Moldova, it became the start of something different: a choice between survival within the old dependency or a leap toward reinvention. > What was once the country’s greatest weakness has been turned into a project > of sovereignty — and, crucially, a bridge to Europe.         Reinvention with a European compass         Under a unified Pro-European leadership — President Maia Sandu, Prime Minister Dorin Recean and Energy Minister Dorin Junghietu — Moldova has embraced the latter path. In 2023 the Ministry of Energy was created not as another bureaucratic silo, but as an engine of transformation.         The strategy was clear: diversify supply, integrate with the European grid, liberalize markets and accelerate the green transition. Within months, JSC Energocom — the newly empowered state supplier — was sourcing natural gas from more than ten European partners via the Trans-Balkan corridor. Strategic reserves were secured in Romania and Ukraine. For the first time, Moldova was no longer hostage to a single supplier.         In 2024 Moldova joined the Vertical Gas Corridor linking Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine — a symbolic and practical step toward embedding itself into Europe’s energy arteries. On the electricity side, synchronization with ENTSO-E, the European grid, in March 2022 allowed direct imports from Romania. The Vulcănești–Chișinău transmission line, to be completed this year, alongside the Bălți–Suceava interconnection in tender procedures, ensures Moldova’s future is wired into Europe, not into its separatist past. Since 2025 the right bank of the Dniester has no longer bought electricity from Transnistria.         Accelerated legislative reform         None of Moldova’s progress would have been possible without shock therapy in legislation. The country rewrote its gas law to enforce mandatory storage of 15 percent of annual consumption, guarantee public service obligations, open its markets to competition, and shield vulnerable consumers. In parallel, it adopted EU rules on wholesale market transparency and trading integrity, aligning itself not only in practice but also in law with European standards, a pace of change that has been repeatedly underscored by the Energy Community Secretariat in its annual Implementation Reports, which recognized Moldova as the front-runner in the Community in 2024.         But perhaps the most striking step was political: Moldova became the first country in Europe to renounce Russian energy resources entirely. A government decision spelled it out clearly: “the funds are intended to ensure the resilience and energy independence of the Republic of Moldova, including the complete elimination of any form of dependence on the supply of energy resources from the Russian Federation.”         Junghietu, Moldova’s energy minister, has been blunt about what this meant. “Moldova no longer wants to pay a political price for energy resources — a price that has been immense over the past 30 years. It held back our economic development and kept us prisoners of empty promises.” The new strategy is built on diversification, transparency and competition. As Junghietu put it: “The economy must become robust, so that it is competitive, with prices determined by supply and demand.”         This combination of structural reform and political clarity marked a definitive break with the past — and a foundation for Moldova’s European energy future.         The green transition: from ambition to action         The reforms went beyond emergency fixes. They set the stage for a green transformation. By amending renewables legislation, the government committed to 27 percent renewable energy in total consumption by 2030, with 30 percent in the electricity mix.         The results are visible: tenders for 165 MW of renewable capacity have been launched and contracted and a net billing mechanism was introduced, boosting the number of prosumers. In April 2025 more than a third of Moldova’s electricity already came from local renewables. The ministry has also supported the development of energy communities, biofuels and pilot projects for energy efficiency. The green transition is no longer a slogan — but a growing reality.         More than energy policy — a political project         Digitalization, too, is reshaping the sector. With support from UN Development Programme and the Italian government, 35,000 smart meters are already in place, with a goal to reach 100,000 by 2027. These are not just gadgets — they cut losses, enable real-time monitoring and give consumers more control. Meanwhile, ‘sandbox’ regimes for energy innovators, digital platforms for price comparison and streamlined supplier switching are dragging Moldova’s energy sector into the 21st century.       These are not technical reforms in isolation; they are political acts. Energy independence has become the backbone of Moldova’s EU trajectory. By transposing the EU’s Third and Fourth Energy Packages, adopting the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan, and actively engaging in European platforms, with technical support from the Energy Community Secretariat that helped authorities navigate these challenges, Chișinău is demonstrating that integration is not just a diplomatic aspiration — it is a lived reality.         Partnerships with Romania have been central. The 2023 energy memorandum, joint infrastructure projects, and cross-border storage and balancing initiatives have anchored Moldova firmly in the European family. Step by step, the country has become not only a consumer but also a credible partner in the European energy market. > These are not technical reforms in isolation; they are political acts. Energy > independence has become the backbone of Moldova’s EU trajectory.         Lessons from crisis         The energy crises of 2021-22 were existential. Moldova was threatened with supply cuts, social unrest and economic collapse. But the government’s response was coordinated, strategic and unusually bold for a country long accustomed to living under the shadow of dependency.         New laws harmonized tariffs, enforced supplier storage obligations and put in place shields for vulnerable households. The Ministry of Energy proved capable of anticipating risks and managing them. Moldova ceased being reactive — and started planning.         Of course, challenges remain. Interconnections with Romania must be further expanded, balancing capacity for the electricity grid is still limited and investment in efficiency has only begun. But today, Moldova has a coherent plan, a competent team and an irreversible direction.         A change of mindset         Perhaps the most profound transformation has been cultural. Chișinău’s energy ministry has evolved from crisis responder to a forward-looking body linking European market realities with citizens’ daily needs. Its teams are now engaging with both the complexities of European energy markets and the practical concerns of Moldovan households. Decisions are increasingly data-driven, communication is transparent, and cooperation with private actors and international partners has become routine.         This institutional maturity is crucial for Moldova’s EU path. Integration is not only about harmonizing legislation but also about building trust, credibility and resilience. Energy has become the showcase — the sector that proves Moldova can implement European rules, innovate and deliver. > Energy has become a catalyst for broader reforms in governance, transparency, > social protection and regional development.         A model in the making         In a region where instability remains the norm, Moldova is beginning to stand out as a model of resilience. Its reforms — synchronization with ENTSO-E, participation in the Vertical Gas Corridor, expansion of renewables and rapid digitalization — are being watched across the Eastern Partnership. Energy has become a catalyst for broader reforms in governance, transparency, social protection and regional development.         What was once a weapon turned against Moldova has been reimagined as a shield. Energy, long the Achilles’ heel of this fragile state, has become its spearhead into Europe.          Moldova’s journey is far from complete. But one thing is already clear: its European future is no longer a promise. It is under construction, one kilowatt at a time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author: Daniel Apostol is an economic analyst, first vice president of the Association for Economic and Social Studies and Forecasts (ASPES), and CEO of the Federation of Energy Employers of Romania. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its content represents the sole responsibility of the MEIR project, financed by the European Union. The content of the publication belongs to the authors and does not necessarily reflect the vision of the European Union.