Five Countries' Implementation of EU Citizen Energy Directives

This project investigated the progress of five member states – Croatia, Germany, Poland, Greece, and Bulgaria -- four years after the EU's Clean Energy for All Europeans package.

The legislation was designed to pave the way for prosumers and collective clean energy projects to play central roles in Europe's new, low-carbon energy system. Since 2019, national legislation has been drawn up in every EU country to make community energy possible where was hitherto unknown – and more sophisticated where it already exists.

The five journalists and the Deutsche Welle found that progress in Central and Eastern Europe is incremental, at best. The state-run energy utilities and conventional energy lobbies are hugely power and see community energy as a threat and a hassle. But determined energy activists have pushed from below to expedite reforms and progress. There are now energy cooperatives in every country that we researched, the nature of which readers can learn about in our five reports.

Photo: Bürgerenergie Rhein-Sieg eG/ Thomas Schmitz.

The team and project has been coordinated by Deutsche Welle Programs for Europe, Deutsche Welle or DW is a German public state- owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget.