REPowerEU: ‘We need to step up the pace’ (European Court of Auditors)

“A significant acceleration is essential to realise the ambitions of the REPowerEU plan,” states the European Court of Auditors in a report published on 9 September 2026.

The 27 EU Member States have committed €54.3 billion of the €300 billion deemed necessary by the European Commission to meet the plan’s targets, representing just 18 per cent of the available funds. The REPowerEU plan, presented in May 2022 in the wake of the war launched by Russia in Ukraine, aimed to gradually reduce imports of Russian fossil fuels by diversifying supplies, increasing renewable energy generation capacity and strengthening cross-border interconnections.

The Commission made approximately €300 billion available to Member States by drawing on the NextGenerationEU fund via the FRR (Recovery and Resilience Facility), which was originally designed for the post-Covid recovery. Member States were thus able to include sections dedicated to REPowerEU in their recovery plans.

According to the Court, the shortfall indicates either an underestimation of the initial investment needs or a failure on the part of…