EU’s Clean Industry Deal faces race against time

“I am not sure how quickly the Deal can drive down energy prices,” said Elisabetta Cornago, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.

...Cornago notes that the “quick solution” of slashing energy taxes was already done in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, “but this leaves holes in public budgets so is not sustainable in the long term.”...“We’ll need to wait for the new MFF for a bigger or at least more coherent EU-wide pot of money,” Cornago said, referring to the EU’s next long-term budget to kick in from 2028.

...While Cornago accepts that it’s “reasonable” to expect that gas will set power prices in the medium term, she argues that “instead of investing in additional capacity, the EU should invest in reducing gas dependence much faster.”