The Right to Energy in the European Union

Uninterrupted, high quality, affordable, and sufficient access to energy services is essential to human life. The European Union has recognized this in recent years by providing greater protection to vulnerable and energy poor households, and by requiring States to provide various forms of support to them. The EU’s new Clean Energy for All Package aims to further increase protection for households, particularly by requiring Member States to define, assess and report on the number of energy poor households within their territory and to indicate the measures they intend to take to address the situation. While the Clean Energy Package stopped short of recognizing a new legally binding ‘right to energy’ for all individuals, sought after by European civil society organizations, the concept of the ‘(human) right to energy’ is gaining considerable traction in law, policy and advocacy all around the world. The new Electricity Directive 2019/944 now also affirms that ‘it respects the fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights’. Clearly, the ‘right to energy’ can be formulated in different manners, for example as referring to affordable, reliable, uninterrupted, high quality, clean or renewable energy supply or services, or as the right to a warm home. The ‘right to energy’ can also be posited in various ways, as a moral right, a call to action, a policy objective or legally enforceable right, the latter through constitutions, human rights treaties or in energy laws. This brief zooms in on a range of recent developments at EU regional and national level, and specifically sets out what such a right might mean in practice.