BRUSSELS — Dan Jørgensen knows he has to lower energy prices — he just doesn’t know where the money’s coming from to do it.
That won’t stop the former Danish climate minister from making a bunch of pledges on Tuesday, when he faces a grilling from the European Parliament that will determine whether he gets to run the EU’s energy policy. He’ll tout plans to build more energy grid infrastructure and better connect it across countries. He’ll vow to accelerate permitting for new, lower-cost energy sources. And he’ll promise to advocate nuclear energy expansion, despite his past reluctance.
Yet all these things require money. And that’s one thing Jørgensen can’t promise, even as high energy bills erode Europe’s competitiveness and drive discontent. Europe is in a belt-tightening, empower-the-private-sector era, and there’s scant momentum to grow the EU’s largesse.
“Energy prices are going to be a big focus,” said Sigrid Friis, a Danish MEP with the centrist Renew Europe group, who sits on one of the committees questioning the would-be energy chief. “But where the money comes from for reforms will be one of the biggest questions.”
