Gas expansion in the guise of security: Is Europe making the energy crisis permanent?

Flexible power and energy security are being used to lock Europe deeper into fossil fuels, a new report warns. The fossil fuel price shock triggered by the war on Iran has exposed Europe’s dangerous reliance on oil and gas. But rather than treating it as a warning, governments across the EU are doubling down – with plans to build almost 60 gigawatts of new gas plants that could lock the continent into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come, a new analysis cautions. The ‘Merchants of Crisis’ report, published by campaign group Beyond Fossil Fuels (BFF) on 15 June, finds that the planned gas plants, if built, would burn around 28 billion cubic metres of gas every year – equivalent to around nine per cent of the EU’s projected gas imports, or the annual gas consumption of 46.4 million households. Natural gas prices in Europe have already risen by 60 per cent since the outbreak of the war, with Europe entering the crisis with much lower gas storage levels than in recent years – 46 billion cubic metres at the end of February 2026, compared with 60 billion cubic metres a year earlier. Households and businesses are bearing the brunt with spiking energy bills and a deepening cost of living crisis. “Building more gas plants will not protect people in Europe from future energy crises – it will deepen our dependence on volatile fossil fuel imports, while energy companies profit,” says Juliet Phillips, energy campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels. “The real solution is establishing a strategy to phase out fossil fuels while accelerating progress on renewables, storage, grids and clean flexibility.” Germany is on the frontline of new gas power The report argues that “a powerful alliance of politicians and energy companies” is pushing Europe deeper into fossil fuel dependence in the guise of energy security. This creates what it calls “a self-reinforcing cycle” that enriches energy companies while leaving households exposed to future price shocks. It singles out Germany as a prominent example. The German government plans to add 12 gigawatts of power plant capacity by 2031, 10 of which are earmarked for hydrogen-ready, gas-fired plants. While this is down from the coalition government’s initial plans to tender 20 GW of gas capacity by 2030, it’s still a significant addition to the country’s existing portfolio of roughly 31 GW. The German government mandates that all newly built gas-fired capacity must “decarbonise” by 2045 – although it leaves the door open for this to be achieved through carbon capture and storage (CCS), which critics including the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) warn is not a proven or cost-efficient solution. In particular, BFF contends that while Germany’s Energy Minister Katherina Reiche is central to the country’s energy policy, she is not neutral. BFF claims she brings a pro-gasindustry stance to her role, after a decade working with E.ON subsidiary Westenergie AG, which supplies over 6.6 million people with fossil-fuelled energy, and VKU, an influential lobby group for municipal energy utilities. Since entering office, she has pushed for the expansion of gas-fired power plants, advocated for the EU to relax its net-zero deadlines to protect industry, and proposed cuts to solar and grid subsidies. She also backed the rollback of Germany’s renewables-focused Heating Act last month. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWE) did not immediately reply when contacted for comment. Germans already face the highest energy bills in the EU due to the country’s high exposure to volatile global gas and oil markets, which set electricity prices. Around 95 per cent of gas consumed in Germany comes from imports. The report also highlights Poland and Romania as having significant government shares in oil and gas that influence policy decisions. In Poland, the state is the majority owner of utilities PGE and ENEA and the top shareholder in energy and utility conglomerates Orlen and Tauron. In Romania, gas producer Romgaz is 70 per cent state-owned, while the state holds a 20.7 per cent share in oil company OMV Petrom. The two companies are co-developing the €4 billion Neptun Deep Black Sea gas project, which is set to double Romania’s gas production from 2027. Romania’s Mintia gas-fired thermal power plant, slated to be the largest in the EU, is expected to become operational this year – despite EU grid body ENTSO-E finding much of the planned capacity would not be economically viable by 2035. Flexible power: Why can’t Europe move forward? Germany’s energy security plans highlight a wider problem: the existing electricity system was built around fossil-fuelled power, and “energy security” is once again being used to justify maintaining the status quo rather than investing in reform. By mandating that 10 GW of its new power capacity “must be able to generate electricity continuously over a longer period of time”, Germany is effectively favouring gas-fired plants. These are currently relied on across Europe to provide flexible, dispatchable power – balancing the grid when wind and solar output doesn’t match demand. But campaigners and energy analysts argue this approach could leave countries with stranded assets. Focusing on battery storage and other clean flexibility solutions could be cheaper and more resilient. "Clean flexibility is scaling fast," think tank Ember's senior energy analyst, Dr. Beatrice Petrovich, tells Euronews Earth. "Grid-scale battery costs hit a record low in 2025, continuing a decade-long trend, while installed capacity more than doubled in just two years – making batteries a cheaper alternative to new gas for short-term grid balancing that is also faster to build. "In Germany alone, battery capacity is expected to grow from 2.5 GW in 2025 to over 10 GW in the next few years. Combined with AI-enabled demand flexibility from a growing fleet of EVs and heat pumps, this progress shows that policymakers should carefully assess the risks of overbuilding fossil assets, including gas supply disruption and stranded costs at the expense of taxpayers." Poland’s capacity auctions go even further: they explicitly only allow gas-fired units to participate, framed by the government as “system stabilisation and energy security”. But new research by Krzysztof Bodzek at the Silesian University of Technology suggests this is also a political choice rather than an unavoidable necessity – finding that by 2040, local energy balancing alone could displace the need for 20.8 GW of gas power plants. The prioritisation of gas as a controllable power source is especially problematic because it draws investment and political focus away from making renewables more flexible through things like battery storage, demand-side response, and time-of-use tariffs. Germany is a stark illustration of how far behind Europe’s largest economy is on this front: while countries like France, Italy, Spain and Sweden have smart meter coverage of 95 per cent or above, just under four per cent of German households had a smart meter at the end of September 2025. Smart meters are a necessity for dynamic electricity tariffs, which are in turn essential for aligning variable renewable generation with consumption – and reducing reliance on gas as a backup. TTEP, a recent joint venture between TotalEnergies and EPH announced in May, is set to become one of Europe’s largest gas power producers. It, too, has been framed as a flexgen player. But campaigners say it will effectively create a new fossil gas giant with a structural interest in prolonging Europe’s dependence on gas imports. ‘European households need freedom from fossil fuel price shocks’ “Energy security cannot be used as a pretext for making the fossil fuel industry even richer through new gas deals,” says Phillips. “European households and businesses need exactly the opposite: lower bills, greater resilience and freedom from fossil fuel price shocks.” BFF is calling on EU leaders, who are meeting this week for the European Council, to endorse a long-term framework to progressively reduce Europe’s structural dependence on fossil fuels – backed by measurable targets and supported by accelerated investment in renewables, storage and grid infrastructure. The European Commission has already proposed a package of new measures, AccelerateEU, in response to the current crisis, but BFF argues these fall short of the structural shift needed to prevent Europe from becoming permanently vulnerable to fossil fuel price shocks. A letter signed by over 20 industry groups, climate NGOs and trade unions has been delivered to EU leaders ahead of the Council meeting, calling for measures that structurally reduce Europe’s exposure to fossil fuel volatility.