EU Energy Commissioner's Emergency Letter: Get Ready for Next Winter, Now

EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen's formal letter to energy ministers calling for urgent winter preparedness is the most explicit acknowledgment yet of Europe's precarious energy position.

Commissioner Jørgensen's Warning: Europe Has No Time to Waste on Next Winter's Energy

EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen's formal letter to all EU energy ministers, confirmed in the Mayer Brown Europe Daily News briefing of March 23, 2026, is the most explicit and urgent acknowledgment to date from European institutions that the continent's energy situation going into the winter of 2026-27 is dangerously precarious and demands immediate coordinated action. The letter, which called on member states to begin gas storage refilling operations without delay and to coordinate their LNG procurement strategies, reflected a level of concern within the Commission that goes well beyond the careful language typically used in official EU communications.

Jørgensen's letter noted that despite the short-term stability created by LNG flows that had not yet been fully disrupted before the Strait of Hormuz restriction, the medium-term storage outlook was alarming. With Germany at 22.3 percent storage fill, France at 22.1 percent, the Netherlands at 6 percent, and European storage overall at 28.4 percent — all significantly below seasonal norms — the refilling season that begins in April needs to proceed at maximum possible pace to achieve adequate fill levels before the following winter.

The letter also signalled that the Commission was reviewing the mandatory storage fill targets established under the Gas Storage Regulation adopted in 2022. Those targets, set in the aftermath of Russia's weaponisation of gas supplies and intended to prevent individual member states from running dangerously low in ways that would harm the whole EU, may need to be adjusted downward to reflect market realities — specifically, that pursuing full compliance with the original targets in current market conditions would require purchasing such large volumes of LNG at such high prices that it would impose greater economic damage than accepting somewhat lower fill levels.