The publication of the “State of the Energy Union 2025 Report” marks a crucial transition for European economic policy, definitively shifting the focus from emergency management to the creation of a long-term industrial strategy. The EU analysis, interpreted through the lens of the Draghi Report, identifies still-excessively high energy costs and market fragmentation as the main obstacles hindering Europe’s competitiveness against global competitors such as the United States and China. Although prices have returned from the peaks of the 2022 crisis, the cost differential with other economic powers and the asymmetries between Member States themselves require a shift towards an energy system that is not only sustainable, but also stable and competitive.
The most telling indicator of Europe’s economic vulnerability lies in its persistent dependence on fossil fuel imports, which in 2024 alone resulted in an outlay of approximately €375 billion to foreign suppliers. The Union’s response, however, resulted in unprecedented structural diversification: Russian gas imports plummeted from 45% in 2021 to 12% in August 2025, while oil imports fell to a residual 3%. The decoupling strategy will culminate with the implementation of the nineteenth sanctions package, which envisages a total ban on Russian LNG imports starting January 1, 2027. This measure aims to definitively end the political exploitation of energy supplies and combat the so-called oil “ghost fleet”.
In this scenario, the real challenge for the Italian and European industrial system lies in bridging the investment gap, currently estimated at €660 billion annually through 2030. A strong political signal comes from the proposal for the new Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034, which envisages a fivefold increase in the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) budget, bringing it to nearly €30 billion. This injection of resources confirms the absolute centrality of networks and cross-border interconnections, sectors in which Italian companies boast excellent know-how and expertise. Infrastructure expansion is, in fact, the only way to reduce dispatching costs—currently estimated at over €5 billion annually to address network congestion—and prevent these costs from quintupling by the end of the decade.
The implementation of this strategy is entrusted to the Affordable Energy Action Plan, which introduces innovative industrial policy tools such as Tripartite Contracts. These agreements, which bring together governments, producers, and industrial consumers, are designed to reduce the financial risk of investment and ensure stable supplies at predictable prices. Initial partnerships are already at an advanced stage in offshore wind energy and storage, but interest is quickly expanding to biomethane, energy efficiency, small modular reactors, and data centres’ energy integration. In parallel, the Commission is working on a “European Network Package” to streamline and simplify authorization procedures, responding to a pressing request from the industry to step up project implementation.
The global context described in the World Energy Outlook 2025 increases the urgency of these internal measures. As Europe seeks to strengthen its autonomy, global electricity demand is being driven upward by digitalization and artificial intelligence, reshaping the geography of consumption toward emerging markets. In this context, the concentration of critical minerals and clean technology supply chains in non-European hands is a further risk to economic security. For this reason, the European Clean Industrial Deal aims to combine climate neutrality and industrial base, promoting unified energy governance that transcends national boundaries.
The EU’s message to Italy is clear: there is no room for a multi-speed Europe. Business opportunities will increasingly be concentrated in high-tech and infrastructure-related segments supported by the new EU financial instruments. The priority now is the consistent implementation of reforms to turn the patchwork of national markets into a single, interconnected system, capable of transforming the energy transition from a cost factor into a lever for industrial competitiveness and geopolitical stability.
