EU energy official says bloc must end reliance on foreign fossil fuels

Kadri Simson points to Russia's failure to increase gas supplies as reason to scale up renewables

Russia's failure to boost short-term supplies to ease Europe's energy price shock shows why the EU needs to wean itself off foreign fossil fuels and scale up renewables, the bloc's top energy official has said.

Kadri Simson, the European commissioner for energy, also defended the EU's green deal plan to move to a net zero carbon economy by 2050, amid calls for a climate policy rethink from central European leaders, as she set out the EU's response to the energy price spike after wholesale electricity prices increased by 200% over the last year.