Meanwhile, the EU already obliges member countries to maintain 90-day emergency oil stockpiles. Non-EU countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, however, have yet to fully comply with similar targets, with oil stockpiles ranging from low to non-existent in countries like Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to a 2025 report by the Energy Community, which represents those countries.
With member countries still trying to gauge how the war will unfold, strategic gas and oil reserves have yet to be deployed, officials from multiple national capitals told POLITICO. Many officials remain sanguine about the short-term prospects, highlighting diversified energy supplies — especially of U.S. LNG.
Ditch fossil fuels altogether?
Pro-renewables and climate groups were quick to point out that Europe wouldn’t be at risk of an energy crisis if all of its power came from homegrown renewables.
U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said Monday that the upheaval shows “yet again that fossil fuel dependence leaves economies, businesses, markets and people at the mercy of each new conflict or trade policy lurch.” Renewables, he said, are “cheaper, safer and faster-to-market, making them the obvious pathway to energy security and sovereignty.”
“No one wanted another example of Europe’s extreme vulnerability due to imported fossil fuels, but we have it anyway,” Adrian Hiel, director of the Electrification Alliance, told POLITICO. He called for a “massive push” for electric vehicles, heat pumps, renewables and batteries.
While renewables now generate almost half of the EU’s electricity, they still account for only 20 percent of the bloc’s overall energy mix. And electrifying things like industry, transport and heating takes decades — it’s not the answer to an immediate crisis.
