Luxembourg: The REPowerEU audit published by the European Court of Auditors on 9 September 2026 concludes that the EU’s response to the energy crisis cut dependence on Russian fossil fuels but has not mobilised the investment it promised. Special Report 21/2026 is titled “Implementation of the REPowerEU plan needs a boost”, and its message is blunt.
When the Commission launched REPowerEU in May 2022, the Union imported about 45% of its natural gas and 27% of its oil from Russia. Russian gas still makes up around 12% of European gas demand, according to a 2026 report from the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators cited in coverage of the audit, so the dependence has fallen sharply without disappearing.
The money is where the REPowerEU audit finds its sharpest gap. The plan was built around roughly €300 billion of additional investment, yet trade press reports that only €54.3 billion had been committed by April 2026, less than one fifth of the total. Auditor Mihails Kozlovs said the plan had stalled even though large sums were available.
The REPowerEU audit points to weak links in the delivery chain. Most national energy and climate plans contained no specific actions or targets for REPowerEU objectives, and the REPowerEU chapters of national recovery plans cannot be treated as the main driver of the plan’s targets. Some funded measures are delayed, and the Commission’s monitoring tools do not support management and evaluation well enough.
Results on the ground are modest. Measures with clear and measurable targets added only limited generation capacity, and most of it came from solar. Cross-border interconnections received little attention, which the auditors describe as a missed opportunity for market integration, energy security and the integration of renewables.
The REPowerEU audit also warns against crediting the plan with every improvement. Falling Russian imports cannot be attributed to REPowerEU alone, because mild winters and high prices that curbed demand also played a part. The direct impact of the plan may therefore be smaller than the headline fall in Russian supplies suggests.
The findings land at an awkward moment. The Middle East conflict has pushed up oil and gas prices again, and euro area energy inflation reached 14.3% in August, which makes the case for faster investment stronger, not weaker. The auditors say the oil and gas price shock has not changed their conclusions.
The REPowerEU audit leaves the Commission, Parliament and Council with a practical question. Either the investment needs were overestimated in 2022, or projects are not being turned into delivery, and the auditors say the data are too weak to tell which. Until monitoring improves, the plan’s success will be judged by the gas the Union no longer buys rather than by the clean capacity it has built.
