European Commission - Eurostat

Unit E.5: Energy

European Commission - Eurostat
Unit ESTAT.E.5: Energy
L-2920 Luxembourg

The dependency of the EU on single providers has long been a topic of concern and a large component of energy security which tops the EU agenda. The EU has sought to improve energy security by building a resilient, interconnected and open internal market, while pursuing a multilateral and rule-based perspective. The current geopolitical events are highlighting the vital importance of controlling and decreasing import dependency. Energy dependence on imports of energy carriers exposes the European economy to volatile world market prices and to the risk of supply shortages, for example, due to geopolitical conflicts. The risks increase with dependency on single countries e.g. determined by the supply infrastructure. There are several relevant EU policies for this indicator. The Energy Security Strategy outlines the need to enhance domestic energy production, including the need to increase local renewable energy production, energy efficiency and provide missing infrastructure.

The indicator is part of the National Energy and Climate Progress Reports (NECPR). It corresponds to Energy dependence from third countries by fuel type in Table 2 (Progress towards implementation of quantifiable national objectives and targets) in Annex V (Energy security) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2299 of 15 November 2022 laying down rules for the application of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the structure, format, technical details and process for the integrated national energy and climate progress reports.

The indicator is highly meaningful for the following fuel groups:

• Total of all products
• Coal (Solid fossil fuels):
• Oil: total of all primary oils (e.g. crude oil, NGL) and petroleum products
• Natural gas

The validity of this indicator for other groups is very limited due to lack of input data in energy statistics (see methodological drawbacks in section 4.1.). It is highly recommended to use the indicator only for the groups indicated above.

The calculation formula for this indicator is the following:

where:

TIMP represents import in units as reported in trade tables of energy questionnaires

BIMP represents imports in energy balances

PP represents primary production

RR represents recovered and recycled products

SC represents stock changes

C represents country

C∈EU for each country C of the EU

F represents individual elements of a fuel group (i.e. one fuel type)

F∈FG for each fuel F in fuel group FG

FG represents Fuel Groups, which are listed below (presented as dimension SIEC in the database):

[TOTAL] Total [Overall] is a category covering the total of the following categories [CF_R] Combustible fuels - renewable, [C0000X0350-0370] Solid fossil fuels, [SFF_OTH] Other solid fossil fuels, [G3000] Natural gas, [O4000XBIO] Oil and petroleum products (excluding biofuel portion) and [E7000] Electricity.

[CF_R] Combustible fuels - renewable [Combustible renewables (biofuels)] includes Primary solid biofuels, Charcoal, Pure biogasoline, Blended biogasoline, Pure biodiesels, Blended biodiesels, Pure bio jet kerosene, Blended bio jet kerosene, Other liquid biofuels and Biogases.

[C0000X0350-0370] Solid fossil fuels [Coal] includes Anthracite, Coking coal, Other bituminous coal, Sub-bituminous coal, Lignite, Coke oven coke, Gas coke, Patent fuel, Brown coal briquettes and Coal tar.

[SFF_OTH] Other solid fossil fuels [Other fossil fuels and wastes] includes Peat, Peat products, Oil shale and oil sands, Industrial waste (non-renewable), Renewable municipal waste, Non-renewable municipal waste.

[G3000] Natural gas [Natural Gas] includes gaseous natural gas and liquified natural gas.

[O4000XBIO] Oil and petroleum products (excluding biofuel portion) [Oil and petroleum products] includes Crude oil, Natural gas liquids, Refinery feedstocks, Additives & oxygenates (excluding biofuel portion), Other hydrocarbons, Refinery gas, Ethane, Liquefied petroleum gases, Naphtha, Aviation gasoline, Motor gasoline (excluding biofuel portion), Gasoline-type jet fuel, Kerosene-type jet fuel (excluding biofuel portion), Other kerosene, Gas oil and diesel oil (excluding biofuel portion), Fuel oil, White spirit & special boiling point industrial spirits, Lubricants, Paraffin waxes, Petroleum coke, Bitumen and Other oil products n.e.c.

[E7000] Electricity [Electricity and heat (including nuclear)] includes Hydro, Geothermal, Wind, Solar thermal, Solar photovoltaic, Tide, wave, ocean, Ambient heat (heat pumps), Nuclear heat, Electricity and Heat.

Methodological drawbacks of this indicator:

• When countries cannot identify the correct origin of imports and report “non specified”, the accuracy of data is lowered. In addition, confidentiality issues create distortions in data, especially when data are supressed and included in “non specified”. 
• Reporting methodology for liquefied natural gas (LNG) results in attributing the re-exported LNG to the country with regasification terminal. In a similar manner, petroleum products refined from imported crude oil that are exported are not considered as those from 3rd countries. Thus import dependency is “reallocated” from the final consumption country to the country with LNG terminal or that with oil refinery.
• For oil and coal, imports by origin are available only in tonnes. This creates problems when combining products in the indicator. The implemented solution is to apply, at the level of each individual fuel, the ratio calculated from trade figures, to the overall imports in energy balances. This means that we keep distinctions between fuels and we keep only the distortion caused by import origins and export destinations. For example: we do not mix imports of crude oil with motor gasoline, but we are not be able to distinguish between light and heavy crude oils. 
• In energy statistics, there is no trade for feedstock for biofuel production (e.g. animal fats, vegetable oils) and nuclear fuel (e.g. uranium, plutonium). All biofuels and nuclear energy is counted as primary domestic production, regardless of the origin of material used for its actual production. This is the historical convention for import dependency indicators. 
• There is no trade reported for some fuels in energy statistics. The imports of the following fuels are not included in the data collected by Eurostat and are thus not part of the indicator for import dependency: primary solid biofuels, charcoal, biogas, industrial wastes, renewable and non-renewable municipal wastes, gas coke, oil shale and oil sands.
• Electricity and heat produced from combustible fuels are presented as import dependency of these combustible fuels. In other words, we count import dependency of a natural gas power plant as import dependency of natural gas and not as import dependency of electricity. Therefore the denominator of fuel group “electricity and heat” excludes combustible fuels. In addition, it is important to note that electricity transits via Switzerland count as exchanges with 3rd countries (e.g. flows between France and Italy).

[PC] Percentage

The calendar year (January - December)

The indicator is produced according to the high-level quality standards of European Statistical System. While indirect indicators suggest that the overall accuracy of energy statistics should be in general high, a quantitative assessment of accuracy was not performed by Eurostat. Please see Related metadata for details on accuracy of the source datasets used to calculate this indicator.

European Commission - Eurostat

Please see Related metadata for specific information on source data used to calculate this indicator.

Every year

Revisions several time per year are possible.

T+2 years

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States.

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States.

> 10 years

All  EU Member States have long time series.

> 4 data points

Comparability over time is ensured with a solid methodology harmonised on international level that is stable over long periods. Occasional breaks in time series are present due to the developments of statistical systems on national level and the level of detailed information (micro data) available at national level.

In general comparability is very high for the last 10 years and for older periods slowly decreasing. In addition, the introduction of new statistical information in the most recent data collections can lead to breaks in series until information is compiled and provided by reporting countries.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/energy/publications

Paper publications have been abolished.

Dissemination is maintained on Eurostat's database: 

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/energy/database

Information not available. Redissemination of this indicator is not monitored.

No flags are used in this indicator, please refer to source datasets for all specificities and particularities.
This dataset is not dynamicaly linked to source data and consequently data revisions are not immediately applied.