The impact of hydrocarbon resources and GDP growth assumptions for the evolution of the EU energy system for the medium and long term

Economic growth -in a globalised economy- and fossil fuel prices even more so are often out of the control of direct policy initiatives of the EU, but affect the achievement of the internal EU energy and climate policies; in this paper we present scenarios which assume higher and lower economic growth and higher and lower fossil fuel prices than the Reference scenario 2013 as well as the most likely combinations of the two and we explore their implications for: the intensity of climate policies required to achieve the 2020 binding climate targets, the evolution of EU energy demand and power generation in the medium and long term and the fossil fuel import bill as well as total energy system costs.