Socio-ecological transformation of the energy sector

FEPS, in collaboration with Transform! Europe and the Green European Foundation is organising a workshop on the occasion of the 6th edition of the European Forum that this year takes place in Athens from the 21st to the 23rd of October. More information and the link to register can be found on the conference website: https://europeanforum.eu/   

The workshop will focus on the changing context for the socio-ecological transformation in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The already emerging climate crises require the fundamental transformation of production and lifestyles. At the same time, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and its consequences, especially for the energy sector, show that the necessary transformation of fossil capitalism into new forms of post-fossil societies can be associated with contradictory ways of dealing with the situation:

(a) wars for spheres of influence and for securing access to strategic raw materials,

(b) with modernization thrusts of ecological-technological capitalism based on the digitalization that is gaining ground,

or (c) with a solidarity-based social-ecological transformation, especially in the energy sector. 

However, such a solidarity-based social-ecological transformation requires, in addition to the question of safeguarding energy and supply security on a post-fossil/ renewable basis, also to guarantee the social questions of access and affordability of energy and food prices for all.

Rising energy prices in the context of the shift away from Russian gas and coal and the search for alternatives are also driving up production and living costs and with them inflation to over 9 per cent. This is associated with the risk of a wave of impoverishment that will affect all EU countries and reach far into the middle classes. 

This raises the following strategic questions which will be the focus of the workshop: 

1. How does the overall problem of the current situation present itself from the perspective of progressives, greens and leftists?
2. What needs to be done, on the one hand, to shape energy security in such a way that a social-ecological energy transition is not blocked and, at the same time, energy and living costs remain affordable?
   Which measures against the foreseeable energy poverty are reasonable and feasible on a European level? 
3. What possibilities are there for redesigning the energy sector or transforming the energy sector – a social-ecological energy transition? Which concrete steps seem to make sense – up to the question of changing the ownership structure in the respective contexts? 
4. On which actors can a socio-ecological transformation currently be based?
   Where are there potentials for joint action?
5. Which common concrete demands can be formulated – what could be the common approaches of the three European foundations?