Europe: breaking free from dependence on fossil fuels – a necessity for the climate and now a geopolitical imperative

In early March 2026, European leaders gathered for an emergency summit in Brussels, their eyes fixed on screens showing columns of smoke rising above Ras Laffan, Qatar’s largest liquefied natural gas production complex. Iranian missiles had just struck the facility, which alone accounts for 20% of the global LNG supply. Within hours, the price of gas on the European TTF market had jumped by 50%, approaching levels not seen since the crisis of 2022. The price of a barrel of Brent crude broke the $100 mark. For the third time in five years, the continent discovered, to its astonishment, just how much its prosperity rested on geopolitical foundations as unstable as a column of high-pressure gas.

The image is striking, but the lesson is not a new one. In 2022, it was Vladimir Putin who, by invading Ukraine, had single-handedly turned off the Russian gas tap, plunging millions of Europeans into the anxiety of facing a winter without heating and forcing the continent’s industry to ration its consumption. Before him, there were the oil crises of 1973 and 1979. Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels is nothing new. It is a constant feature of its economic history, a structural weakness that decades of market integration and energy abundance have helped to obscure.

What is new, however, is the unprecedented combination of pressures currently weighing on the Old Continent. Firstly, the climate crisis demands a phase-out of fossil fuels, dictated by the physical urgency of climate disruption. Secondly, the war in Ukraine has abruptly transformed energy into a weapon of war and a tool for blackmail. Finally, the Trump administration is using exports of American liquefied natural gas as a lever for trade pressure, demanding massive purchases from Brussels to avoid punitive tariffs. Europe thus finds itself caught between a dependence on fossil fuels—which it must absolutely reduce for climate reasons—and new geopolitical dependencies that threaten to replace it.