What can Europe achieve when it cooperates for the climate?

Energy doesn't stop at borders. Prices rise in several countries at once, buildings waste energy in regions that have little else in common, and families struggling with their bills face the same problems on both sides of a frontier. Take the area where Slovenia meets Hungary: many households there were living in energy poverty, which means they struggled to meet their basic energy needs. Energy prices were climbing, and that struggle was putting those households at risk of social exclusion. No single region could solve that alone.

So the partners of a project called EnerTy, part of the Interreg Slovenia-Hungary programme decided to start with the basics: finding out who was affected. Four partners, one in each of their regions, gathered data on the ground. The Hungarian partners carried out energy audits in households, and everyone worked with key organisations to fill in the missing pieces. Then they collected good practices, policies and tools, and drew up a plan for the whole cross-border area, with special attention to the people most at risk. The most lasting result came next: decision-makers at local, regional and national level signed protocols committing to reduce energy poverty, and a cross-border group was set up to keep an eye on how those promises are kept. The partners knew each other already. They had worked together on an earlier project, Green Line, and had signed a long-term cooperation protocol at its end. Trust built once helped again.

Farther north, around the Baltic Sea, another problem looked quite different. Buildings use a lot of energy there too, but many municipalities and small businesses find it hard to cut it. Energy audits are expensive and often come with complex technical solutions that take years to pay off. The Easy Energy project, part of Interreg Baltic Sea Region, asked a refreshing question: what if saving energy could be simple and cheap, something anyone could do quickly? Its answer was low-tech measures such as better insulation and smarter use of water, electricity and heating, with no big investment needed. The team tested them in different buildings, then trained local “Energy Practitioners”, experts who can keep advising the municipalities and businesses around them. Partners from Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland shared real examples of the solutions in practice.

And in the South Adriatic, the GR.EE.N project, part of Interreg IPA South Adriatic, is looking at energy from a different angle: who owns it. It focuses on energy communities, collective models where citizens take part in the energy they use. These are seen as a key tool against climate change, and they work best when they start from the grassroots. Authorities, whether national, regional or local, can help them be born by offering the right framework, expertise and advice.

Three projects, three corners of Europe, one common thread. Working together meant learning from partners in other countries, turning past collaboration into new projects, and leaving behind things that outlast the funding: signed commitments, networks of local experts, groups that keep watch. That is what Europe can achieve when it cooperates for the climate: energy saving that is not distant or technical, but close to home, in more efficient buildings, easier lives for struggling households and communities that take charge of their energy.